National partnership is not meeting the needs of those living in poverty, a network of 25 organisations working against inequality has said.
In its mid-term review of the Sustaining Progress agreement, the Community Platform network says "apart from the pay deal part, it [Sustaining Progress] has little connection with real people facing real disadvantage, exclusion or poverty".
The network includes such organisations as the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed, the Simon Communities of Ireland, the Migrant Rights Centre and the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice.
Though the Community Platform participated in social partnership agreements since 2000 neither it nor the National Women's Council endorsed Sustaining Progress because they said it "displayed a refusal by government to engage in addressing anti-poverty or equality issues".
Mr Seán O'Regan, of the Community Workers Co-operative, insisted yesterday, however, that the platform would have "loved to have seen progress on tackling poverty" and that yesterday's critical evaluation was "not sour grapes". The review looks at progress under eight headings, but says that commitments in the national agreement are "unclear" and that this makes it difficult to measure progress.
On poverty and social inclusion it says: "No additional resources have been added to the National Anti-Poverty Strategy as a result of Sustaining Progress. "Despite statements to the contrary there has been a decline in support of the role of the voluntary and community sector in anti-poverty and anti-exclusion policies."
On the child care crisis, the review says that despite extensive public spending "the supply of childcare remains mismatched to parental preferences and parental demand".
"The affordability issue of childcare is acute. A worker on a minimum pay [€7 per hour] would have to work from Monday morning to mid-Wednesday in each week to pay for childcare before they started earning any income."
The review looks also at measures to tackle drugs and alcohol misuse. "The treatment services and responses to drug misuse are not keeping pace with the increased numbers of users according to expert groups."
Other issues the review looks at are Traveller accommodation, homelessness, child poverty, unemployment, educational disadvantage, disabilities and affordable housing.
"The challenge now for social partnership is how to ensure that its work is relevant to those people on the margins of society and how can their, often critical, voices be effectively heard," said Ms Sharon Keane of the Community Platform. "Simply excluding them from the decision-making arenas because they are critical is a very short-sighted approach."
