Lone parents, people who are disabled or ill and the unemployed are most likely to suffer deprivation in Ireland, as new Central Statistics Office figures reveal one in every eight children regularly goes without heating or a meal.
According to the CSO Survey on Income and Living Conditions the deprivation rate in Ireland rose from 26.9% in 2012 to 30.5% in 2013, meaning more than 1.4 million people in Ireland are unable to afford basics from a list of essentials that includes two pairs of shoes, a warm, waterproof coat and a meal containing meat every second day.
Karen Kiernan, CEO of One Family – Ireland’s organisation for people parenting alone and sharing parenting said that the parents her organisation comes into contact with are living “on the knife edge of poverty”. One Family recorded a 30% increase of callers to its helpline last year.
Ms. Kiernan said the Government is ignoring the lived reality of these parents’ caring responsibilities: “It continues to enforce new, ill-formed activation measures without provision of effective supports such the long-promised, affordable quality childcare. Over 39,000 lone parents will be taken off their One-Parent Family Payment and moved to Job Seekers Transitional in July this year. The real impact of this will be even more hardship and we’ll see yet another rise in the numbers of one-parent families suffering deprivation in future reports.”
Stuart Duffin, One Family Director of Policy & Programmes added: “People parenting alone are still being hit the hardest. Over 800 lone parents who are also caring for adult family members are set to lose another €86 per week this year. How much further can the income gap widen? Austerity has impacted on everyone.”
The European Anti-Poverty Network has called on the Government to implement a five-year plan aimed at reducing the level of poverty in Ireland.
