I did not live with any of the stressors listed but my boyfriend did. From birth till about adolescence he lived in poverty. There were plenty of times where there were roaches and other vermin sharing his home with him and his brother and father. he hardly ever had new school supplies, clothes or toys that all the other kids had at that time. He would get his older brother's clothes and toys. His Halloween costumes were mostly handmade or the plastic ones. He did not get to have birthday parties every year and presents. There were times where he did not have any heat and electricity but he always had food. The types of houses/apartments he lived in varied and some were falling apart or run down and others weren't so bad. His vacations consisted of going camping or fishing, he never got to go to the beach or somewhere really nice. The nicest birthday gift he ever got was his BMX bike. He skipped school a whole lot and dropped out in high school but later got his diploma and GED. He says that when he was a child he did not realize that he lived in poverty, he was about 10/11 when he realized it. This is when he started to realize that the clothes he wore, toys he played with, school supplies he had and things he got to do were not as nice and new as all the other kids. As a child he never really did anything about living in poverty. As an adult he went into the Job Corp, obtained his diploma/G.E.D and got trained in welding and transportation. He was a carman technician for 3 years. He has had a variety of jobs over the years. The people that helped him try to better himself were a few TCU teachers and his welding instructor. He went to them for advice and observed where they were in their lives and wanted the same. Unfortunately life keeps throwing him curve balls and he has yet to reach this but he is still trying.
Poverty in Ireland
There are several different factors that cause poverty be it a family suffering or a whole country.
Causes of Poverty
Poverty is not inevitable. Poverty is an outcome of the way society allocates resources such as money, wealth, jobs, education, housing, healthcare and so on. The political system, the labour market, the social welfare system and the taxation system all influence the allocation of resources in society. Other factors, many of which are inter-related, that influence the likelihood of being in poverty include:
Having a job or not and the type of job Size of family and type of family, e.g. one parent, couple, couple with children etc Age People's social circumstances or social class Gender Disability Educational experience Ill health Whether people own/rent a home Experience of discrimination Sexual orientation
Poverty stops some people from participating as equals in everyday life, from feeling part of their community and from developing their skills and talents. This process is often called social exclusion. The Irish government has set a national policy target of reducing consistent poverty to 2% by 2007.
Some Facts on Poverty in Ireland-2001
- In 2001, 192,000 people (5% of the population) lived in consistent poverty.
- Consistent poverty levels reduced from 14.5% in 1994 to 5% in 2001.
- In 2001, more than 862,000 people (almost 22% of the population) lived on less than €164 per single person per week.
- Relative income poverty levels increased from 15.6% in 1994 to 22%.
- In 2001, 6% of the population live without basic necessities and on weekly incomes of less than €172 per adult.
- 4.9 % (192,000) of the population are on weekly incomes of less than €192 for an adult and €63 for a child and lack basic necessities.
- 6.5% of children (66,000) experience consistent poverty; 23.4% (237,000) are in income poverty. (Combat Poverty Agency, 2001)
- Children in Ireland are almost twice as likely as adults to be poor. By EU standards, Ireland has amongst the highest rates of child poverty, even though it has fallen in recent years.
- Demand for Housing is currently outstripping supply, particularly in the social housing sector. According to the Local Authority Social Housing Assessments of 2002 a total of 48,413 households were in need of local authority housing compared to 39,716 in 1999, an increase of 23.5 %.
- The financial stresses faced by private renters on low incomes are more severe than the financial stresses from housing costs faced by low income house purchasers.(Against all odds, 2004 Combat Poverty)
Key findings from the 2000 Living in Ireland Survey
- 22% of the population were below 60% of median income in 2000, while 28% were below the 70% line.
- For a single person, the 60% line was about €147 per week in 2000 and the 70% line was about €172per week.
- Households whose head was retired were at a significantly higher risk in 2000 (34%) than in 1994 (8%) because of rapid increases in average household incomes since 1994 relative to state pension increases.
- Where the household head was unemployed the risk of poverty remained high at 51%. However due to failing unemployment this group represented a much lower proportion of all those in poverty by 2000.
- Where the household head was ill or disabled, the risk of falling below the 60% line increased significantly from 30 % in 1994 to 54% in 2000 -even higher than for the unemployed.
- For households headed by someone's working full-time in the home, the risk of falling below the 60% line increased from 21% in 1994 to 48% in 2000.
- Between 1994 and 2000, there was a sharp increase in risk for those in one and two adult households without children. Such increases are explained by the fact that a significant number of these households comprise older people many of whom rely on inadequate social welfare pensions.
- Over the 1994-2000 period there was a slight increase in risk for households comprising 2 adults and 1 or 2 children. However, the risk for households comprising a couple with 4 or more children or a single adult with children remained high at 46% and 47% respectively.
http://www.galway.ie/en/Services/CommunityEnterpriseEconomicDevelopment/Inclusion/PovertyinIreland-Stats/
[Nolan et al (2002) Monitoring Poverty Trends in Ireland : Results from Living in Ireland Survey. Dublin : Economic and Social Research institute. Combat Poverty Agency 2002]
European Anti Poverty Network Ireland is an organization that was established in 1990, and is a network of groups and individuals working against poverty. It is the Irish national network of the European Anti Poverty Network (EAPN Europe), which has two decades of experience in lobbying for progressive social change at European level.
EAPN Ireland supports a network of over two hundred local, regional and national organisations and individuals’ committed to tackling poverty through a range of actions including community development, policy analysis and lobbying, campaigning and participation. EAPN Ireland aims to build the capacity of its membership to engage with national and European policy making through training, information dissemination, collective action and networking.
Campaigns that EAPN Ireland has worked on in the last number of years include the 2010 European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion, Ireland in Social Europe: Challenging Perceptions and Changing Realities, the European Minimum Income Campaign, European Parliament Awareness Project, the Social Aspects of the Lisbon Treaty, and campaign to include poverty targets in the European 2020 strategy. EAPN Ireland has also worked with members at local level to retain capacity and fight cutbacks to existing services, and with associates at national level through campaigns like the Poor Can’t Pay, the Equality and Rights Alliance, Is Feider Linn, and the Community Platform.
http://www.eapn.ie/eapn/
