Anti-poverty campaigners have welcomed the Government's new 10-year social inclusion plan which aims to eliminate consistent poverty within a decade.
The National Action Plan on Social Inclusion pledges to reduce the number of those experiencing consistent poverty to between 2 per cent and 4 per cent by 2012, and to eliminate it by 2016.
In contrast to the previous 10-year plan, which placed a strong emphasis on welfare increases, much of the focus of the new blueprint is on activation measures to help the long-term unemployed enter the workforce.
Prof John Monaghan of the Society of St Vincent de Paul welcomed the plan, but cautioned that significant investment in support measures will be needed if the ambition to eliminate consistent poverty is to be realised.
The State-funded Combat Poverty Agency said the focus of the plan will need to be on implementation and improvement of services for people in marginalised communities.
Agency director Helen Johnson said: "We've talked the talk, now we need to walk the walk. A huge effort will be required to provide good standards of services and support for everyone who needs it."
The key goals set out in the plan include:
Providing pre-school education for children in disadvantaged areas;
Reducing literacy difficulties and tackling early school-leaving;
Reducing the number of people whose total income is from social welfare payments by 20 per cent, by providing education, training and jobs for the long-term unemployed;
Meeting the accommodation needs of 60,000 households, in particular homeless people, Travellers, older people and disabled people;
Providing 500 primary-care teams to improve access to services in the community with particular emphasis on medical card-holders;
Developing a strategy aimed at the integration of newcomers into society; and
Maintaining, or enhancing where possible, the value of child income supports, social welfare and pensions.
Minister for Social and Family Affairs Séamus Brennan said the broad aim of the plan was to ensure everyone had the opportunity to participate and share in the benefits of our economic and social development.
"We are setting out a roadmap that will deliver a more inclusive society. It is a plan that will confront the unacceptable remaining levels of consistent poverty and strive with determination to eliminate them by 2016," he said.
Critics have pointed out that the most recent 10-year plan to tackle poverty between 1997 and 2006 also aimed to reduce levels of consistent poverty to 2 per cent or to eliminate it by 2007.
Mr Brennan, however, said the old 10-year plan used a way of measuring poverty which had been revised by the EU about four years ago. The new measurement shows consistent poverty levels are at about 7 per cent. However, he said it was likely under the old measurement that the 2 per cent target had been reached.
"It is no exaggeration to say that virtually everyone in society has benefited to some extent from our economic buoyancy and the harnessing of benefits to help and support the vulnerable and marginalised," said Mr Brennan.
"In less than a decade, at least 250,000 people - including 100,000 children - have been lifted out of deprivation and hardship as a result of targeted measures and supports."
Age Action Ireland, meanwhile, expressed disappointment that the plan threw little light on how it will tackle poverty among older people. The European Anti-Poverty Network, while welcoming the plan, said it was not ambitious enough.
