THE priority of the national anti poverty strategy is to halve by 2007 the number of people identified as "consistently poor" in Ireland. It also aims to cut unemployment by the same year to 6 per cent from the present rate of 11.9 per cent and to reduce long term unemployment from 7 per cent to 3.5 per cent.

A Cabinet sub committee, chaired by the Taoiseach, will be established to deal specifically with issues of poverty and social exclusion. All Ministers whose portfolios include policy areas associated with tackling poverty will be included.

The strategy also aims to eliminate early school leaving before the Junior Certificate, as well as reduce early school leaving so that, by 2000, at least 90 per cent of pupils will complete their secondary school education.

Entitled "Sharing in Progress", the strategy has been described as a major policy initiative by the Government to place the needs of the poor and socially excluded at the top of policy development and action. In developing the strategy, poverty has been defined as applying to people "if their income and resources (material, cultural and social) are so inadequate as to preclude them from having a standard of living which is regarded as acceptable by Irish society generally".

The definition says "as a result of inadequate income and resources, people may be excluded and marginalised from participating in activities which are considered the norm for other people in society".

Using relative income poverty lines, between 21 per cent and 34 per cent of the population can be said to be living on incomes below 50 to 60 per cent of average disposal income. Based on 1994 figures, this amounts to approximately £64 to £77 a week respectively for a single adult.

Using a combination of income poverty lines and basic deprivation indicators, it is estimated that between 9 per cent and 15 per cent of the population can be said to be living in poverty and can be identified as "consistently poor". The strategy aims to reduce these figures to under 5 per cent and 10 per cent.

The chief aims of the strategy fall into five key areas - education, unemployment, income adequacy, disadvantaged urban areas and rural poverty. It says the link between unemployment and poverty and the association between education attainment and earnings point to a significant risk of an "increasingly divided society emerging in Ireland over the years ahead".

In addition to cutting unemployment rates as based on labour force survey figures, it also proposes that all policies in relation to income support - including tax, social welfare and pensions - should ensure sufficient income to allow people to move out of poverty and live in a manner compatible with human dignity.

A team to coordinate the strategy's implementation is to be set up under the strategic management initiative and will be based in the Department of Social Welfare. The Minister for Social Welfare will have responsibility for the "day to day political oversight of the strategy".