Bye, bye holiday hunger, hello hefty bills: Life for Ireland's poor
Young And Esri Show Parents Findings Live Poverty Line Below Their 250,000 New Children The
Back to school hits differently when your bank account is near-empty — it is less about sending the little monkeys out of the house and more about seeing them get regular meals again.
Have we reached an acceptable level of poverty where programmes such as hot meals in schools tinker around the edges of the crisis but still leave families disempowered and struggling?
This was among questions raised during End Child Poverty Week — questions given heightened urgency by new ESRI findings showing 250,000 young children and their parents live below the poverty line.
It comes against a backdrop where one State body can spend over €330,000 on a bicycle shelter. This is obviously not coming from the same pot as money for nutrition or housing but it perhaps makes the weariness of many community workers easier to understand.
Nessan Vaughan, chair of St Vincent de Paul’s National Social Justice Committee, was blunt in his assessment of State efforts to tackle poverty.
“I think the country, at a macro level, has missed almost all the targets for reducing poverty,” he said.
Their workers go into homes where lack of food is a crisis, he said.
“People often come to us and say ‘I want help with food’ and you go and talk to them, and what’s driving the food issue is they are trying to juggle maybe a very big energy bill,” he said.
It was quite startling to hear him say what their workers see in some homes: “Often the children are being fed but their mothers are not, they are cutting back. We find that constantly.”
Mothers say they paid the rent or the electricity — whoever is screaming the loudest — but that impacts on food spending.
Talking about school children, he said they see ‘holiday hunger’ is more noticeable now State programmes offering food through schools are expanding.
“We find we get a good focus on calls for food in the summer but they’re not too worried at that time about the utility bills,” he said.
He called for more targeted approaches, saying schools and youth clubs also know who is struggling.
“There is quite a bit of intelligence out there that with a bit of drive and thinking, we could address it,” he said.
Twoschool principals addressed the same event as Mr Vaughan, hosted by the Children’s Rights Alliance.
Eoghan O’ Byrne is a national school principal in an area of Limerick struggling with high levels of deprivation.
“It’s so obvious the impact of food poverty on our children, and when they don’t have food coming in you can see that,” he said.
“They’re detached, they’re withdrawn, they’re emotionally dysregulated.”
He highlighted the positive impact of State, charitable and philanthropic funding for hot meals and snacks in schools.
However, he said reliance, or as he put it, “over-reliance” of families on this was concerning.
There are many factors behind this, he explained: “Unfortunately we’ve lots of families who have been through intergenerational unemployment, intergenerational trauma, addiction issues, there’s an issue of drug dealing as well.”
It means children are “not in a safe, consistent space to be educated”, he added.
They provide Christmas vouchers for SuperValu and the local butcher, funded by the Children’s Rights Alliance.
“I always hold onto a few vouchers throughout the year. After summer obviously is a difficult time for some of the families, food provision becomes an issue,” he said.
“There are eight weeks they have to provide three meals a day for their children and that has a knock-on effect as well on what the family can afford and put on the table.”
Tracie Tobin, a principal in Limerick City, spoke about food gaps but also invisible restrictions.
So she praised school summer programmes but said State funding for these dropped dramatically in recent years.
“My school is situated right beside the train station in Limerick City, and one of our trips was to go on the train to Limerick Junction and back. Most of our children had never been on a train,” she said.
“That experience for them was a highlight of the summer camp. But yet [this year] we found ourselves supplementing the summer camp with funds from our own school.”
This comes almost two years after the ESRI warned children living in poverty are substantially more likely to face poverty as adults than people who had a financially secure childhood.
Differing access to education was a key factor, they said.
Government ministers pointed to plans including minister of state at the Department of Social Protection Joe O’Brien saying last week work is ongoing to expand school meals into holiday programmes.
Measures such as free GP appointments for children also help, according to health minister Stephen Donnelly.
“We have to make sure as well young children have access to proper nutrition and diets so every one grows up with the same opportunities in Ireland,” he said.
He insisted targeted interventions were working, and said: “Is there more we can do, there certainly is and we want to continue to invest.”
HSE chief executive Bernard Gloster drew links between access to education, housing and health, saying “positive discrimination” is needed to help certain groups get ahead of poverty.
“It is a significant issue in many cities around Ireland, particularly in inner cities,” he said. “I don’t think we should forget that poverty is also in isolated and rural areas as well.”
The urgency needed to address this for individuals was summed up by Denise Charlton, Community Foundation Ireland chief executive, writing in the latest ESRI report.
“Many are not heard when it comes to policies which directly impact their daily lives,” she said.
“Such exclusions challenge equality and social cohesion while breaking down trust in our public institutions. This is the road to mistrust, anger and fear, creating a divided society which is socially and economically poorer.”