There are 615,000 people, or 14% of the population, living in poverty according to the Central Statistics Office. Almost 200,000 of them are children. 116,000 of them are in employment. The Society of St.Vincent de Paul has warned that the campaign currently being run by IBEC, ISME and others to lower the Minimum Wage has the potential to reduce further the already low incomes of more than 600,000 people.
In a week which saw Ireland exposed as the second dearest country in the EU for food and drink and when all sorts of ordinary people are struggling on very low incomes, employer organisations are trying to force their incomes even lower and the Government is planning additional cuts and charges, the SVP has warned.
It said today (July 1, 2010) that the fall in the cost of living in 2009 did not lift families and households in difficulties due to the economic recession out of poverty. Cuts in wages, working hours and welfare payments pushed them deeper into poverty.
The cuts to community organisations, health services and education impact on these families and individuals, but the cuts in their incomes represent a particular and real threat to their well- being, according to John-Mark McCafferty, Head of Social Justice and Policy at the SVP.
It is to fight this threat that a wide range of community organisations, charities and trade unions have come together to form the ‘The Poor Can’t Pay’ campaign of which the SVP is part.
In a statement these organisations have warned that the campaign currently being run by IBEC, ISME and others to lower the Minimum Wage and pay rates agreed through Employment Rights Orders and Registered Employment Agreements has the potential to see the already low incomes of more than 600,000 people reduced.
Read the full SVP press release here
For more details about 'The Poor Can't Pay Campaign' go to the website