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University of Wisconsin–Madison
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty

Tag: Ireland

Disability and Poverty

  • Disability makes poverty likelier than ever: report, By Olivia Carville, September 25, 2014, Toronto Star: “Being disabled is increasingly a trigger for poverty and hunger, according to a new report profiling food bank clients across the GTA. The percentage of disabled people lining up at food banks has almost doubled since 2005, the Daily Bread Food Bank’s Who’s Hungry report states. Disability beneficiaries receive so little money from Ontario’s social welfare programs they are forced to live in poverty, Daily Bread executive director Gail Nyberg said…”
  • People with disability ‘twice as likely to experience poverty’ – charity, By Geraldine Gittens, September 24, 2014, Irish Independent: “People with a disability are twice as likely to experience poverty due to the extra costs they incur, a charity has warned. There is ‘substantial evidence’ that the additional costs of having a disability can place a household ‘at significant risk of poverty and deprivation’, according to new research acquired by Inclusion Ireland…”

Recession and the Newly Poor – Ireland

Irish cutbacks pile it on for ‘new poor’, By Guy Chazan, November 27, 2010, Wall Street Journal: “A church-run soup kitchen here symbolizes the human cost of Ireland’s crisis: Middle-class homeowners, squeezed by rising debt and falling incomes, line up for food parcels alongside foreign asylum-seekers and the long-term unemployed. These are Ireland’s ‘new poor’-ordinary people with houses and jobs laid low by years of austerity, and now facing even tougher times as the government slashes public-sector jobs, raises taxes and cuts social welfare. Theresa Dolan runs the Capuchin Day Center near Dublin’s law courts that caters to the swelling ranks of the city’s poor. Before 2008, around 250 people came each day for a hot dinner, she says. Now there are 520. And the visitors’ profile is changing…”

Report: Poverty Rate – Ireland

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…”