Citation
Barnardos. (2011). Barnardos Children’s Budget 2012. https://knowledge.barnardos.ie/handle/20.500.13085/1007
Abstract
Barnardos knows that the recession is having a serious impact on many children
across Ireland. Recent cuts to social welfare rates, reduced working hours and
increased taxes have all meant more families struggling to survive on less; less
income and fewer support services in health and education. Already over 90,000
children in Ireland are living in consistent poverty, but Barnardos knows that many
more are at risk. For many children this means living on poorer diets, missing their
developmental milestones, suffering from more ill-health, struggling in school and
increasing isolation because they are unable to participate in many activities such
as going to friend’s parties, swimming and other social activities.
The short-sighted savings of successive budgets are jeopardising children’s
futures. Childhood is time limited; the impact of poverty is difficult to reverse
and has longer lasting and more damaging effects on children than on adults.
It is fundamentally unjust to ask children to shoulder any more of the burden for
the economic crisis, especially those living in low income families who have no
more to give.
There has been much discussion about the opportunity provided by the
recession to “do more with less”, to be innovative and imaginative in our
approach to finding solutions to the chaos the recession has created. This
does not, as yet, appear to have been applied to the way we deliver public
services. With the exception of ambitious and welcome plans to restructure
services for children and families, there have been few debates or innovative
suggestions about how we might change our overall approach to public
services. We need new systems for the 21st Century; services that are
responsive, flexible and tailored to properly meet the needs of the people
they serve.
Barnardos believes that Budget 2012 should continue the process of
change which began with the General Election 2011. Budget 2012 provides
an opportunity for this Government to stand by the principles set out in
the Programme for Government and make good on promises to protect
the most vulnerable. Budget 2012 is about choices. Savings must be
made but they cannot be made at the expense of children and families
whose lives are already being made unbearably difficult by poverty and
disadvantage. Budget 2012 must be about investing in Ireland’s most
valuable assets: our children.