The use of the consistent poverty indicator, which measures income threshold levels and experience of deprivation in charting poverty levels in the Republic, was challenged in the Dáil yesterday by the Green Party.
Mr Dan Boyle (Green Party, Cork South Central) described the indicator as "unique in Ireland". All other measures of income poverty "show this country performing quite poorly". The gap between the "most wealthy" and the least well off was the second highest in the OECD, outside the US.
"The policies the Government is pursuing, in the light of rising unemployment and inflation running higher than the European average, will make the situation worse," he said.
The Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Ms Coughlan, did not agree. Indicators of poverty - relative and consistent - were academic, she argued.
"The ESRI, my Department and I agree the use of consistent poverty is a better measure and indicator. Reliance on income is not a true reflection of poverty." Consistent poverty had fallen from 15.1 per cent in 1994 to 6 per cent in 2000: "The Government is committed to reducing consistent poverty to below 2 per cent and, ideally, eliminating it by 2007."
Labour's spokesman on family and social affairs, Mr Tommy Broughan, said it was "a demonstrable fact that we are being ripped off, right, left and centre, particularly since the introduction of the euro". The €10 a week Ms Coughlan's predecessor had given people on social welfare last January had been wiped out by inflation, he added. There had been "massive inflation in goods and services". One in five women pensioners was living in consistent poverty, he said.
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