Written answers
Wednesday, 5 February 2025
Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection
Poverty Data
Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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634. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection to list the level of consistent poverty in each of the electoral areas of Ennis, Ennistymon, Killaloe, Kilrush, and Shannon, in County Clare for each of the years 2011 to 2024, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2967/25]
Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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A person is said to be in consistent poverty if they are both at-risk-of-poverty (AROP) and suffering from material deprivation. Data on rates of consistent poverty are derived from the CSOs Survey of Income and Living Conditions (SILC).
The SILC is an annual survey carried out by the CSO of a representative sample of the population. The survey collects information on the income and living conditions of different households in Ireland, in order to derive indicators on poverty, deprivation and social exclusion. It is carried out in every EU country under EU legislation and commenced in Ireland in June 2003.
The definition of income in SILC is based on a 12-month period. The income reference period for SILC is the previous calendar year. Therefore, the income reference period for the latest data from SILC 2023 is from January to December 2022. The achieved sample size in Ireland was:
- 4,191 households and 10,199 individuals in 2023.
The below table sets out the consistent poverty rate for each of the three regions alongside the National rate for the years 2020 to 2023 (due to a break in time series in the methodology used to collect SILC data, income data from the 2020 SILC onwards is not directly comparable with previous years).
| - | Southern | Northern and Western | Eastern and Midland | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|
2020 | 4.9% | 4.4% | 4.0% | 4.4% |
2021 | 5.5% | 3.8% | 3.5% | 4.2% |
2022 | 5.9% | 8.2% | 3.0% | 4.9% |
2023 | 4.0% | 4.2% | 3.1% | 3.6% |
Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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635. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection to list the level of food poverty in each of the electoral areas of Ennis, Ennistymon, Killaloe, Kilrush, and Shannon, in County Clare for each of the years 2011 to 2024, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2969/25]
Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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While there is no official indicator at EU level for measuring the rate of people experiencing food poverty, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has developed a deprivation-based measure of food poverty in Ireland, based on data from the Survey of Income and Living Conditions (SILC).
Under this measure, Food Poverty is defined as the inability to have an adequate and nutritious diet due to issues of affordability or accessibility. It is measured by the percentage of individuals experiencing one or more of the following –
- Unable to afford a meal with meat, or vegetarian equivalent, every second day,
- Unable to afford a weekly roast dinner (or vegetarian equivalent), and
- Missing one substantial meal in the last fortnight due to lack of money.
The national rate of food poverty in Ireland in SILC 2023 was 8.9%, up from 8.4% in SILC 2022 but down from 12.2% in SILC 2020.
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