Yes / No Child Poverty Campaign

Abstract

Poor children live in poor households. Poverty affects every aspect of a child’s life; children living in poverty live life on the margins, excluded from opportunities and often unable find a way out of cycles of poverty to improve their own futures. This exclusion has a long-term detrimental effect on their health, education outcomes and life chances. A good indicator of a civilised society is how it treats its most vulnerable children. Last December’s budget does not show this Government in a positive light. We cannot ask our most vulnerable citizens to continue to pay for the bad fiscal management which led to the economic difficulties facing the country. Disproportionate cuts to social welfare, education and health have far reaching implications not just for the lives of the individual children affected but for the whole of Irish society.