The poverty gap could widen as the Republic becomes more affluent, the ESRI's review warns. Unless welfare increases are linked to average earnings, groups such as the old will increasingly be left behind, it says. Investment in education should be directed towards the least advantaged, it argues. And it calls for measures to tackle the housing shortage, including an expansion in accommodation rented from private landlords and the local authorities.
Growth will increase real living standards for the population as a whole, the review says. This will result from higher after-tax income and improved public services.
Many of the State's economic and social problems can be effectively tackled over the next decade, it says - but if some groups are not to fall behind, a clearly-focused strategy to combat poverty and social exclusion will have to be implemented.
The number of people who have less than half the average income has remained high, it points out. This is because welfare increases have not kept pace with increases in average incomes.
"If this continues over the medium to long term, groups such as the elderly will increasingly be left behind, and as expectations adjust to higher societal living standards, more groups will come to be seen as facing poverty and exclusion."
To avoid this, it says that full indexation of welfare benefits to average earnings is needed. Welfare rates, it points out, have lagged behind other incomes. "If they continue to do so, those depending on social welfare will inevitably become more and more detached from the living standards enjoyed by the bulk of the population."
In tackling poverty, it will not be sufficient to target very poor communities because poverty is spread very widely around the State, the review argues.
"The most effective and efficient way forward is to increase expenditure on highly effective programmes targeted exclusively and intensively on the long-term unemployed, while allowing market forces to absorb younger, relatively short-term unemployed."
Training programmes which are strongly linked to the needs of the labour market should be expanded. But the numbers participating in Community Employment Schemes - which finances part-time workers for schools, voluntary groups and other bodies - should be reduced, it says.
"Inevitably there will be a minority of those currently on Community Employment who will have difficulty finding their way in a competitive labour market. For them a modified form of CE on a full-time basis may be needed."
It points out that 13 per cent of people on the lone parents' allowance are taking part in Community Employment Schemes. For these parents, mainly mothers, the "phasing out" of these schemes "must be associated with improved childcare provision and more flexible working arrangements, to allow them to transfer into formal paid employment."
In education, the review says resources are needed to boost adult education and to tackle early school leaving, and it adds that investment in early education would be likely to produce "high returns to investment".
The review adds that there will be "a need to ensure that educational standards are further raised through attention to the training and evaluation of teachers".
On housing, it says the prospect remains that waiting lists for social housing will continue to grow for "quite a number of years yet".
The aim of public policy, it says, should be to increase access to good accommodation with secure tenure. But this should not mean prioritising schemes to help people to buy their own houses; instead the Government should aim for a more developed private rental sector, as in other EU countries.
"As a result, a primary focus on access to accommodation would entail an expansion of rental tenure, in private sector accommodation as well as in social housing."
Institutions "with a more professional approach to letting policy" should be encouraged to invest in private rental accommodation to reduce the reliance on "amateur" landlords, it says.
And security of tenure should be improved in the private sector in a way which is "attractive to tenants while at the same time conducive to investment by landlords".
Tenants on low incomes should qualify for the same level of State support regardless of whether they are in local authority or private housing, the review says.
