Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)
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Question 230: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the percentage of people living in poverty in 2006 in Counties Kerry, Cork, Clare, Galway, Roscommon, Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal. [34675/08]

Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)
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Question 231: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the percentage of people living in consistent poverty in 2006 in Counties Kerry, Cork, Clare, Galway, Roscommon, Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal. [34676/08]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 230 and 231 together.

The main data on poverty levels in Ireland are derived from the annual EU Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). Results for the fourth year of the survey, 2006, were published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) in November 2007. The survey results do not break down poverty rates by county, as the survey sample size is too small. In 2006 the achieved sample size was 5,836 households and 14,634 individuals. The survey does, however, provide a Regional breakdown, by Border, Midlands and West region and by Southern and Eastern region, as defined in the NUTS2 (Nomenclature of Territorial Units) classification used by Eurostat. The results, broken down by gender, are provided in the following Table 1.

When EU-SILC results for 2007 are available the CSO will be examining the possibility of providing a further breakdown of the data by each of the eight Regional Authorities established under Local Government legislation. This breakdown would correspond to the Eurostat NUTS 3 classification. A report "Mapping Poverty: National, Regional and County Patterns", published in 2005 by the Combat Poverty Agency, provides some data by local authority area. The report states that sampling factors limit the extent to which the data can be reliably broken down by county and concludes that, while it might be possible to do this, "it would not be sensible to do so because of the wide margin of error associated with the figures". The breakdown of poverty data by local authority area is provided in Table 2. This data is not fully comparable with the data provided under the EU-SILC survey because of survey differences relating to such issues as how income and consistent poverty are measured.

An analysis of the Combat Poverty Agency report shows disparities in the incidence of poverty risk by local authority area, with the highest incidence being recorded in the Border and West regions. Exploring the reasons for such spatial variations, the report found little evidence of a causal relationship between poverty and location per se. It found rather that the main factors determining poverty relate to the socio-economic composition of households, which in turn were influenced by structural factors such as lack of education, low-paid work, unemployment or non-participation in the labour force.

The higher percentage levels of poverty in certain regions are also in part explained by the lower proportions of those who are well off in those regions, compared to other mainly urban regions. This is due mainly to the availability of higher paid jobs in urban regions and currently to a younger working population. The differing levels of house prices between regions are another indicator of these phenomena.

The need to address the differences in the incidence of poverty between regional and local areas is reflected in the actions contained in the National Action Plan for Social Inclusion (NAPinclusion). The overall aim of the NAPinclusion is to build viable and sustainable communities, improving the lives of people living in disadvantaged areas and building social capital. The Communities chapter of the Plan outlines a series of programmes that support disadvantaged local communities, which are designed to improve the quality of life and promote the social inclusion of all people, particularly those who may be vulnerable and isolated. Furthermore, at local authority level, social inclusion structures are being strengthened through the work of the Local Government Social Inclusion Steering Group, chaired by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. The purpose of the Group is to promote and support the embedding of social inclusion in local government in the context of national policies. Moreover, in line with the commitment in Towards 2016, pilot social inclusion units have now been established in half of all county and city councils.

Building on the progress already made in this regard, my priority, in working with Government, is to deliver the NAPinclusion programme over the coming years leading to significant improvements in living standards for those living in disadvantaged areas and addressing the disparities in poverty levels between regional and local areas.