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THE IRISH GOVERNMENT is halfway through its Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The Presidency Programme targets “stability, jobs and growth” and picks a round of “fights” namely: the fight against poverty, the fight against hunger, the fight against the effects of climate change, and the fight against tax evasion and tax fraud.
In the ‘fight against poverty’, the programme makes reference to the Europe 2020 Strategy, which aims to lift 20 million people out of the risk of poverty or social exclusion by 2020. No mention is made of the fact that, last year, the Irish government reduced its target from eliminating consistent poverty by 2016, to reducing it to 4 per cent by 2016.
The European Anti-Poverty Network expressed alarm at this reduction. In its key message on the overall target, the organisation said: “Austerity policies are generating poverty and undermining an inclusive recovery.” Far from reducing poverty, European and Irish policy, through austerity, is concentrating wealth and thereby increasing poverty. Ireland, at the helm of the EU, is presiding over poverty.
The EU, which often praises its own role in international development, need not look beyond its own borders to see widespread poverty. Twenty-four per cent of the EU27 population is at risk of poverty or social exclusion (approximately 120 million people) and up from 23 per cent the previous year. At 38 per cent, Ireland has the highest rate of children at risk in Western Europe and the fifth highest of the EU27.
The Irish League of Credit Unions ‘What’s Left’ surveys are important indicators in the Irish media and have been ‘noted’ by the Troika. The latest of these, based on December 2012, showed that 61 per cent of people have less than €100 left at the end of the month once essential bills are paid, 36 per cent have less than €50 and 20 per cent have nothing at all. Another survey showed that 56 per cent of Irish homes have been forced into debt to pay household bills.
The CSO’s Survey in Income and Living Conditions demonstrates that almost one quarter of the population, over one million people, experienced two or more types of deprivation in 2011. These types of deprivation include: unable to afford to replace any worn out items of furniture, without heating at some stage in the last year, and unable to afford a roast one a week. This poverty has manifested itself in hunger as 10 per cent of the population or 450,000 people are in food poverty. One cannot deny that there are a significant amount of people that are struggling to get by in modern Ireland.
Despite these levels of poverty, we remain a very wealthy as a society. But this wealth is concentrated in very few hands. According to the CSO and Credit Suisse, the total wealth in Ireland is €468 billion. Half of this is owned by the richest 5 per cent. The top 1 per cent (36,000 adults), where the true extent of the concentration of wealth is seen, own a startling €131.5 billion or 28 per cent of all wealth in Ireland. This is same amount as owned by the poorest 80 per cent, 2.9 million adults!
The application of austerity in the last six budgets, far from closing these gaps or protecting the vulnerable, has seen the rich get richer. According to the CSO, between 2009 and 2010 the disposable household income of each decile fell, except that of the richest 10 per cent – which increased. In the year following two austerity budgets, the poorest 10 per cent of people got 26 per cent poorer while the richest 10 per cent got 8 per cent richer.
The proponents of austerity, the Troika, cannot even agree over whether the policy is working, with recent exchanges between the EU and IMF. An IMF working paper in January found that “stronger planned fiscal consolidation has been associated with weaker growth than expected” and that “fiscal multipliers were substantially higher than implicitly assumed by forecasters,” particularly in the short term.
Fiscal multipliers, though only one factor to consider for fiscal policy, are an indication of the effect of changes in government spending on economic output (GDP). The IMF has found that fiscal multipliers due to fiscal consolidation (austerity) are far higher than originally assumed and are of the order 0.9 to 1.7. This means that every €1 cut from government spending will reduce economic output by between €0.90 and €1.70. Far from improving the situation, austerity is making things much worse and, in fact, both Ireland and the Eurozone are officially back in recession. Despite the government rhetoric, employment is not rising and emigration is.
Austerity may not be working for most of us, but it certainly is for the super-rich. The richest 300 people in Ireland make up the richest 1 per cent of the richest 1 per cent of adults. These 300 people in Ireland own €66 billion. That’s more than that of half the population and almost as much as the entire bailout package. The era of austerity has been very good to these people as their take has risen from €50 billion (2010), €57 billion (2011), €62 billion (2012) to €66 billion (2013), according to the Sunday Independent. That’s an increase of one third in just three years.
It is in this context that at least €64 billion of private banking debt has been taken on by the Irish State. According to economist Michael Taft, Ireland has borne the brunt of European banking debt, 42 per cent of the total cost of the European banking crisis. The recent promissory notes ‘deal’ does not represent any success for the Irish Presidency of the EU. The liquidation of IBRC and conversion of the promissory notes to 25-40 year government bonds completes the transfer of private banking debt to sovereign debt liable to be paid by the Irish public. According to Prof. Terrence McDonough of NUI Galway, the deal represents little to no saving, will not reduce austerity, and is really a “scam”.
As austerity continues, and as the property tax and the Croke Park 2 cuts are coming down the line), domestic demand (personal consumption + government expenditure) has fallen each year. The latest Quarterly National Accounts show that personal consumption has fallen by €7 billion government expenditure by €5 billion since 2007, however the big loser has been gross fixed capital formation (investment) which has fallen by over €20 billion and is now the lowest in the EU27 as a percentage of GDP.
The true fight against poverty is a fight against austerity. It is a fight for public investment to overcome unemployment and a fight to put the needs of the vast majority in society above those of the super-rich.
Richard Manton is a journalist with Youth Media and the Irish Presidency, a Youth in Action initiative run by European Movement Ireland, and blogs at Public Engineering.
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If 38% of the children of Ireland have the highest risk of poverty in Western Europe, so much for us cherishing our children in this so-called great little nation of ours. Reading this article, it proves the old adage still resonates today but with an added sinister appendage: The rich get richer, whilst the poorer get poorer, especially when austerity is throwing into the mix. When poverty is forced on children by society to satisfy the greed of the wealthy, it is time for society to reflect hard on itself. To punish children because they happened to be born is repugnant and it reflects badly on who we are as a people! Makes me angry when I read just terrible statistics – especially when they have to do with Ireland!
A recent publication from two German finance experts Matthias Weik & Mark Friedrich “Der Gröste raubzug der Geschichte” ( The biggest robbery in history ) describes the ongoing rapid transference of wealth from the bottom up to a very few elite, in chilling detail and with well documented facts. I dont know if its available in English yet.
ISBN 978-3-8288-2949-7
382 Seiten, Paperback
Tectum Verlag Amazon 19 Eur.
Take the time to watch this and then decide to act!!Ireland and me and you are guinea pigs…these ideas are follow ons from fascism etc….the IMF ECB are the same as the SS.
http://vimeo.com/26718047#at=0
In THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world– through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.
At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq’s civil war, a new law is unveiled that would allow Shell and BP to claim the country’s vast oil reserves…. Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly out-sources the running of the “War on Terror” to Halliburton and Blackwater…. After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts…. New Orleans’s residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened…. These events are examples of “the shock doctrine”: using the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters — to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy. Sometimes, when the first two shocks don’t succeed in wiping out resistance, a third shock is employed: the electrode in the prison cell or the Taser gun on the streets.
Based on breakthrough historical research and four years of on-the-ground reporting in disaster zones, The Shock Doctrine vividly shows how disaster capitalism – the rapid-fire corporate reengineering of societies still reeling from shock – did not begin with September 11, 2001. The book traces its origins back fifty years, to the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman, which produced many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today. New, surprising connections are drawn between economic policy, “shock and awe” warfare and covert CIA-funded experiments in electroshock and sensory deprivation in the 1950s, research that helped write the torture manuals used today in Guantanamo Bay.
The Shock Doctrine follows the application of these ideas through our contemporary history, showing in riveting detail how well-known events of the recent past have been deliberate, active theatres for the shock doctrine, among them: Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973, the Falklands War in 1982, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Asian Financial crisis in 1997 and Hurricane Mitch in 1998.
@Adrian Bannon thanks for the link.
you were right it was worth taking the time to watch it.
Adrian,
Excellent documentary. Many thanks for the link.
Very good documentary. ( Im shure Fox news will be broadcasting this once a week ). Seriously though, we should be very gratefull that such brave and inteligent women exists.
what we have here is called class warfare , the 1 percent vs the 99 percent you might say #taxtherich
So….what are you all going to do about it? Join us on 13th April 12.30 Garden of Remembrance. It’s time to walk the walk and stop complaining. Time to rise up, stand up and demand an end to austerity. The Property Tax is going to compound everything in the above article. It’s time to stop being complacent. If you’re not going to do it for me and my children, then do it for yourself and your children and grandchildren. If we don’t unite now it will be too late. There’s another 3b being taken out of the economy in October where do you think they’re going to get that? It won’t be from the richest 5% in Ireland Over 1m has already been taken out of that extra rise in Motor Tax and given towards the “bailout”…Legislation went through last week, you didn’t see that in the papers did you. so how this whole thing plays out is really up to us. We can get up off our big lazy asses and shake that oppression, depression and complacency off our shoulders and realise that we can change all this.
Together.
A stomach churning read
Yet our gov can spent €4m in travel expenses.
€7m rebranding the social welfare,
Still pay nama developers ,
Still have a gov jet
Still pay vast somes in pensions to past gov ministers.
Still pay county councillors in excess of €20m in expenses,
Still pay the likes of john delaney €360,000pa , so called “man of the people”joe duffy €300,000pa .
.
.
This country sure is arse about face
Etc etc etc
as for europe.
Fascist blue shirts will start killing off the poor soon enough
That “whats left” survey is complete a poor mouth paddy syndrome fairy tale.
I find it very hard to believe that 3 million people only have €3 a day to live on after all essential bills are paid.
Brass Rat
Essentials can be determined as much by where you live as by how. Somebody who lives in Dublin City within walking distance of a Luas or Bus Line, and a shopping centre & works within walking distance of the same Luas or Bus Line, should not find it essential to own a car.
However people who live in rural areas with no employment prospects of any kind require a car or motor bike to travel the 20, 30, 50 or more Km each way to work, find them essential. Try using public transport if you live in say Athboy but work in Navan (18km) or Carlow & Athy (17km). The same can happen in our cities also. I have a relative who does not drive. They live in Clondalkin, and worked in Clondalkin. All was fine until they got a promotion which required a transfer to Blanchardstown. The 8 minute stroll became a 3 hr per day commute, and could only be sustained until the first child came along.
Sky Sports is not essential, most people would agree, but neither is the booze or the cigs. But then again for those people who have become addicted to the drink & cigs, they are essential. At least they are essential until they receive (nonexistent) treatments to break their addiction(s).
But then again the flow of money within the economy would reduce should we all give up the drink & the cigs, not something that is good for our economy. At least the public house owing politicians will be happy with us giving up the Sky Sports, as we will have to go to the pub to watch our team.
A 3 hour per day commute is the norm for many people who work in Dublin but don’t live there. So it’s not really an excuse to give up work if you have a job.
It is when you can’t find any child minding near where you work & the child minding is not of sufficient duration where you live. Her husband worked shift in the opposite direction and her promotion involved weekend and evening work. With no family in the area they were unable to find anywhere they could get the child minded over the hours they required.
Totally agree. Its a myth
Sort of depends on how you define poverty.
The international poverty line is $1 to $1.25 a day.
Then there’s absolute poverty and relative poverty. Obviously we should help people in absolute poverty to help themselves out.
But when most people say poverty they mean relative poverty which is a nebulous and moveable poverty line which means that there will always be poor people except in some dire socialist dystopia. Obviously if you shift people above this poverty level and recalculate the averages they suddenly slip below it again. The solution? More welfare?
No not more welfare – give people food and clothing stamps.
This would stop people going hungry as they wouldn’t be able to buy smokes and or gargle out of their welfare money.
Damocles – relative poverty is a fluid state but it hardly moves by the hour. Relative poverty today is of course different to relative poverty 10 years ago but a society where all citizens can afford healthy food, clothes and a broadband connection is hardly utopian.
“it hardly moves by the hour.” Nor did I suggest it did.
“a society where all citizens can afford healthy food, clothes and a broadband connection is hardly utopian.”
Drop the broadband and you’re talking absolute poverty. As I suggested “Obviously we should help people in absolute poverty to help themselves out.” I believe literacy is also a requirement for getting people out of absolute poverty.
Going back to broadband … when people are actually poor and are bothered about not having food and clothes they tend not to worry about broadband, in fact it’s relatively low on the scale for people who unclothed and hungry. Anyone who claims to be poor and is whinging about broadband needs a slap.
It’s even more nebulous than Damocles is suggesting. The 38% figure is “at risk of poverty or social exclusion”. Not poverty, not social exclusion, but the risk of one of those.
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STAT-13-28_en.htm
Here is how it is defined:
“Persons at risk of poverty or social exclusion are those falling into at least one of the following three conditions:
(1) Persons at-risk-of-poverty live in a household with an equivalised disposable income below the risk-of-poverty threshold, which is set at 60% of the national median equivalised disposable income (after social transfers). The equivalised income is calculated by dividing the total household income by its size determined using the following weights: 1.0 for the first adult, 0.5 for each other household member aged 14 or over and 0.3 for each household member aged under 14.
(2) Severely materially deprived persons have living conditions constrained by a lack of resources and experience at least 4 out of the 9 following deprivation items: cannot afford 1) to pay rent/mortgage or utility bills on time, 2) to keep home adequately warm, 3) to face unexpected expenses, 4) to eat meat, fish or a protein equivalent every second day, 5) a one week holiday away from home, 6) a car, 7) a washing machine, 8) a colour TV, or 9) a telephone (including mobile phone).
(3) People living in households with very low work intensity are those aged 0-59 who live in households where the adults aged 18-59 on average worked less than 20% of their total work potential during the past year. Students are excluded.”
The first is a measure of inequality, not material wealth. If we were all on $1 a day, no one would be in “poverty”. But you would be in “poverty” if you were on €100k while the average was €165k. And while it doesn’t change by the hour, it is also true to say that Ireland’s poverty statistics improved between 2008 and 2011 because the median income line fell. I don’t think anyone would pretend that life actually got better for those at the bottom of the heap.
The third is a measure of permanence of unemployment. Only the second is actually about material deprivation, and pretty vague stuff some of it is.
Note to the logically challenged: none of this means there aren’t serious problems. There are. But these statistics obscure them and the possible solutions rather than helping.
Damocles & Emily
It is much simpler to calculate poverty.
If you are paid $1.25 per day and it costs $1.24 per day to house, feed & cloth yourself you are not in poverty.
If however you are paid $1.25 per day and it costs $1.26 per day to house, feed & cloth yourself you are in poverty.
How much it costs to house, feed & cloth yourself is generally not in the individuals control as the individual does not set the price for bread, shoes & housing.
@Damocles.
One of the difficulties is that if someone is at risk or living in poverty that this is unacceptable. Regardless of how it is measured, the real and apparent difficulties experienced by people in poverty are too many to type on here. The devastating consequencies of poverty such as poor health, poor litracy, poor overall educational possibilities, social excluded from normal discorse and life. I wont go on too much but the broadband comment is to my opinion missguided.
I Dont have a home phone, Dont have Broadband, Dont have Sky TV, Dont have Holidays every year, Dont have a Plasma Flat Screen and I have many DONT HAVES.
Defining poverty whilst necessary for the State to measure it, it should not be the definition that superceeds the person / family. Statistics often cover up the real problems faced and statistics dont come up with solutions or initiatives that are needed. More welfare wont necessarily bring people out of poverty, this is fact. there needs to be a well rounded approach by the state, which in terms of the EU 2020 targets Ireland is inept at delivering and is seeking reductions to the targets. There shouldn’t be a one size fits all approach as people are experiencing different levels of poverty. How proud the Irish State must be whilst wathcing its people become even more embroiled in austerity policies that see the rich get richer and the “poor” become even more hard pressed and “poorer”.
“consequencies[sic] of poverty such as poor health, poor litracy[sic], poor overall educational possibilities, social excluded[sic] from normal discorse[sic]”
Damocles.
“Erm … quite. Symptoms of absolute poverty. Not of relative poverty.” So Poverty nonetheless…
“the broadband comment is to my opinion missguided[sic]”
Yes … (Okay…)
“More welfare wont[sic] necessarily bring people out of poverty”, Hence my sarcastic rhetorical question. (Sarcasim…really….adding to the debate)
Why does anyone think any state would want to make people poor? Poor people earn less, generate less tax revenue and don’t vote for the incumbent politicians. How could that possibly be in the interest of the Irish state? The Irish government is not trying to make people poor. That would be incalculably stupid even for here.
(they may not be trying however their actions dont elude to progressive poverty proofing of any policy they initiate… but they are doing a good job of creating a more unequal society….)
I’m not disputing there’s poverty, I’m pointing out that how you define poverty dictates how you tackle it. Aboslute poverty can be tackled, relative poverty just moves the goalposts.
The number of people in absolute poverty in this country, or indeed anywhere in Europe, is miniscule.
What worries me is what the Irish Government will do after the Presidency of the EU finishes.
At the moment we don’t have street demonstrations showing us in bad light to our EU masters, but we have not been fully hit with property & water taxes.
What is going to happen once the EU cameras go away? Have any of these picked up on requiring families to give up minimum pay jobs and live on €20 per day food, all so the Governments re-capitalised banks can pay shareholders dividends? Minister Noonan admitted only one week ago he only expects some of the money the Government “invested” to be repaid after the banks are sold off.
We already have some state employees on family income support. We already have people on state run training courses having to give them up because they cannot afford child care costs & housing costs.
What happens when members of the Garda end up in court for non payment of bills even when they are lining on €20 per day, and so lose their jobs and their homes? Who will police the streets?
Who will ensure the children will be educated to a level that will enable them to get out of poverty?
Not a Government who pensions are multiples of the national industrial wage rate, let alone the minimum wage or the national pension rate, and all for 2 years work as a Minister, that’s for sure.
Just read today , some donegal td diddy mcginley …..claimed €126,000 in travel expenses ,
Must say i,ve never heard if him
He won,t be in poverty anytime some .is it no wonder this country is dividing by the day
Sean
That would be €126,000 tax free expenses on top of a basic of €96,000.
Wouldn’t know it by going to a mall .
What austerity? The deficit stands at 7.5% after 5 years (and it’s now increments are to be frozen, allowances are being tentatively reviewed, social welfare fraud is being enforced). Maybe someday Nama builders will have to live on less than €200k a year, €11bn in tax allowances are reviewed and corporations pay an effective rate of tax in excess of 7% – that would be austerity!
Poverty in the developing word is having to go days without food and walking miles to access dirty water from a well with no shoes on your feet. It is not having access to even the most basic medical needs that we take for granted. It’s people dying of starvation and malnutrition.
Poverty in Ireland is not being able to afford an iPad, iphone or a Galaxy S3. Noone here has died of starvation or malnutrition or lack of access to clean water on a daily basis. I think we need a bit of perspective here.
But Simon, some of these people don’t have broadband. How can you be blind to their suffering?
You must be a very cruel man.
Simon,
Spot on. We should ignore the ever widening gap between the richest and the poorest in our society until a portion of our population begins to starve. At that point, we will have the moral authority to discuss these matters. Until then we should accept that Austerity is the best medicine for the people and be grateful that we have enough to eat.
@Simon Eales,
Incorrect. Two older people died in Dublin last year because of FUEL POVERTY, yes they couldnt afford to buy heat. By the way that was the official finding of their sad demise, for me this is unacceptable. I know many homes who have burned their kitchen presses to get heat, silly as this may seem, it is true. If you want perspective, I would suggest that we measure our wealth or lack of it with similar countries. You wouldnt compare the education system of Uganda with the Irish system. So I would ask that for comparrison purposes we need to compare like with like otherwise we would get a scewed result. Just my opinion.
In total agreement
You know why austerity doesn’t work? Because many parents don’t put their children first, but alcohol and drugs first. Now they are being cut down with free money so guess where are they going to make some saving to balance this out a bit? At their addiction? No – children will suffer.
I know Ireland is past it’s best economical times now, but I still cannot figure out how decent willing to work and addiction free family/parent can get to poverty levels, come on its not Somalia here. There are maybe few unfortunate people like that, but 38% of children…?
@ carcu The german’s are re education us at the moment and the school teacher is Enda
and soon they might be policing us
have your say