Poverty levels to increase significantly, says report, By Jamie Smyth, September 8, 2010, Irish Times: “Poverty levels will increase significantly in coming years, particularly for those vulnerable groups dependent on social welfare, a leading think tank has warned. A report by the Economic and Social Research Institute published yesterday says Ireland faces a ‘very challenging situation’ and the most vulnerable groups will face ‘a greater risk of consistent poverty and social exclusion’. It singles out the long-term unemployed, lone parents and those unable to work due to disability or illness as the groups most at risk of becoming caught in a deepening poverty trap. It says Government policy is critical to ‘poverty-proof’ the most vulnerable groups and warns benefits have already been cut due to the worsening economic climate. ‘The onset of the economic recession in the second half of 2008, contracting GDP, fiscal crisis and rising unemployment figures are likely to have serious implications for the income and living conditions of many of the population which are not picked up in the 2007 data or indeed in the 2008 figures,’ says the report. The report Monitoring Poverty Trends in Ireland 2004-2007 shows the proportion of people ‘at risk of poverty’ fell during the economic boom, from 19 per cent in 2004 to 16 per cent in 2007…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty