This Government has one last chance to tackle poverty and social exclusion. Despite the sudden fall in the expected growth rate, tomorrow's Budget will see Government allocate more money than has ever been allocated for a single year in the past. There are more than sufficient resources available to ensure poverty and social exclusion are addressed effectively.
It is a sad reflection on this Government's term of office to date that, as it approaches its final Budget, there are still very large numbers of people who don't have what is required to live life with dignity.
Despite the unprecedented prosperity of recent years, poverty and social exclusion have not been tackled on anything like the scale that was possible, given the available resources.
The widening rich-poor gap is Ireland's greatest budgetary scandal. While economic growth has produced unprecedented prosperity in recent years, Ireland's poorest people have been effectively excluded from what is required to provide a minimally adequate standard of living. This is unjust, unfair and unacceptable. Government is facing its last chance to address this situation.
Tackling poverty effectively is a complex task. It demands action on many fronts ranging from healthcare to accommodation, from education to employment. It also involves tackling issues that are specific to particular geographic areas or population subgroups such as older people or the young.
However, the most important requirement in tackling poverty is the provision of sufficient income to people to enable them to live life with dignity.
When a country has the required resources, it stands indicted if it chooses to allocate its resources in a way that does not ensure that every person has the minimum required. It stands doubly indicted when it chooses, instead, to allocate the bulk of the available resources to those who were already better off. That is what Ireland has chosen to do in the past four years. In summary it has chosen to betray its poorest people.
Ireland today has much that is positive and of which we can be justly proud. However, it also has a scandalous side of which we should be ashamed. For example, in Ireland today:
Poor people don't have enough income to provide for basic necessities.
The numbers living in relative income poverty are growing.
The average disposable income of the poorest 10 per cent of households was less than £84 a week in the year 2000 compared to £1,125 a week for the 10 per cent of highest-income households.
The gap in disposable income between a person earning £40,000 a year and a person who is unemployed has been widened by £159 a week by the present Government since it came to office.
A growing number of poor people are on housing waiting lists and have to wait for years before accessing appropriate accommodation.
The two-tier healthcare system ensures Ireland's poorest people must wait at the back of the queue until the better off have been provided for first.
Many people with jobs are living in poverty because their incomes are so low.
Educational disadvantage persists for large numbers of poor people, both young and adults.
This is not an exhaustive list. But it serves to highlight the fact that, despite being one of the richest countries in the EU, as measured by income per capita, the issues of poverty and social exclusion have not been addressed effectively.
Substantial resources exist, but these have been given primarily to the better off in recent years. Budgets have benefited the richest according to the ESRI. The rich-poor gap is widening, according to the CSO.
No amount of weasel words from a politician who chooses to hide behind the most inappropriate nom de plume of Drapier (see Irish Times, October 27th) can hide the fact that the prosperity of recent years has not been used to maximum effect in tackling poverty and social exclusion. The resources that were available over the past four years provided Government with an opportunity to tackle these issues in an effective way. Government chose, instead, to give the major part of the resources available to those who were already better off.
Budget 2002 should reverse the trend of recent Budgets and allocate the available resources in a way that ensures the scale of relative income poverty is reduced and the rich-poor gap is narrowed. To achieve this it is essential that next week's increase the lowest social welfare payment by at least £14 a week for a single person and £24 for a couple.
While Ireland has a standard of living above the EU average, it does not have an EU standard of infrastructure or social provision. On the other hand its total tax take is low by EU standards. This raises serious questions. How can Ireland have an EU level of infrastructure and social provision if we are not prepared to pay an EU level of taxation? This goes to the heart of whether or not Irish people's quality of life is to improve in the years ahead.
A society is measured by how it treats its most vulnerable people. By this measurement Ireland is failing dismally.
Whether or not income poverty is addressed effectively is a matter of political will. Sufficient resources exist now to ensure that every man, woman and child in Ireland has enough income to live life with dignity and to reduce the rich-poor gap.
The Government has one last chance to make a positive difference on these issues.
Father Sean Healy is director of the Justice Commission of the Conference of Religious of Ireland