04/02/2005

Half-a-million NI people below poverty line, claims report

A new report has claimed that over 500,000 people in Northern Ireland are living below the poverty line.

According to the report ‘Bare Necessities - Poverty And Social Exclusion In Northern Ireland’ a higher proportion of families are living in poverty in Northern Ireland than in either Britain or the Republic of Ireland. Specifically the report found that 185,000 households containing over 500,000 people were living below the poverty line.

Poverty was measured by two yardsticks: low income and deprivation - having to go without things, which are generally regarded as necessities of life: such as enough money to pay heating, electricity and telephone bills on time and new, not second hand clothes.

The report was released as senior scientists and policy-makers met in Belfast today to explore how far the government had succeeded in abolishing child poverty, reducing social exclusion, and improving equal opportunities in Northern Ireland.

The starting point for today’s discussion was the new Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) report which summarises the latest research findings into poverty in Northern Ireland and what policies might be effective in reducing the incidence of poverty.

Professors Paddy Hillyard and Eithne McLaughlin of School of Sociology and Social Policy at Queen's University of Belfast delivered opening papers at the seminar and drew on their ‘Bare Necessities...’ report as well as ‘The Bottom Line: Severe Child Poverty In Northern Ireland’ report which is to be published shortly by Save the Children in Northern Ireland.

Brought together by the ESRC, the UK's biggest social research funder, the seminar examined the distribution of income, benefits and tax in Northern Ireland.

(MB/SP)

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