Child Poverty

Purple

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Fintan O'Toole is rightly angry about child poverty in Ireland in today's Irish Times.
I agree with most of what he says but he doesn't address what is probably the biggest factor; the parents of those children. There is no financial excuse for a child to be hungry. There is no financial excuse for them not to be clean and, most of all, there is no financial excuse for them not to be in school. The solution to poverty is education and facilities and resources for children in socially deprived areas have improved out of all recognition over the last 20 years (and rightly so). There is still more that could be done but the point is that educational outcomes have not improved by a corresponding amount. That is not the fault of teachers or the government or the state or the "right wingers" as Mr. O'Toole deridingly calls those who disagree with him.

There is no amount of money that will overcome the damaging influence of parents who just don't care about their children's education and therefore their children's future. The section of society who teaches their children to give up before they start, to screw the system, to not respect the Gardaí or their teachers or to obey the law.
They are the malevolent influence, they are the block, they are the root cause of childhood poverty and, most damaging of all, they are the ones who make it harder for other parents from the same areas who want their children to succeed in life.
Success does not mean money or wealth, it means being fulfilled and productive members of society.
 
This is something I have often commented on. I could name housing estates that even to drive through is not a good experience. Filthy children, teenagers who look like they have just come out of prison, roads covered with large stones and unwanted household items, footpaths destroyed, walls spray painted with every obscenity you can think of, discarded rubbish etc join to make these estates into veritable no-go areas. Then there is the danger to even walking through or near such estates fearing attack.

I heard a priest who tried to get such people to clean up their act being ostracised locally. Soap and water cost little. It costs nothing to send children to school. But, Aldi queues are full of the local residents who have no problem buying wine, beer and anything else. Drug dealers never did so much business. Sporting clubs are crying out for youthful new playing members and adults to get involved in the club. It is not good enough to say that there is nothing "out there" for them because we all know there is.

I'm not confining all of the above to local authority housing estates. Some private housing estates are not much better.

Who is to blame? The easy targets are the Gardaí, the Social Services, the Teachers, anybody but the guy you see in the mirror.

I often wondered what would happen if the likes of St-Vincent de Paul Society decided to close their doors for six months.
 
I'm getting that uncomfortable feeling I get when I agree with you Leper. :)
I would never give money to the VdP
 
Completely agree. No amount of money is going to solve this unless that money is directed towards preventing certain people from having kids in the first place, at least until they have somehow shown they will adhere to the basic norms of a functioning society!

Our eldest kid is due to start school in September and is down for a couple of schools, incl a DEIS school nearby. We got the 'pack' recently and it includes a lunch option- apparently kids in DEIS schools get free lunch every day, and you pick at the start of the year what sort of sambo/fruit/milk etc that you want on each particular day.
I also know from a family member that some DEIS schools also provide free breakfast clubs (if they can get sponsorship/funds).
So thats 2 of the 3 meals a day provided by school.
And anyone thats read my posts on supermarket shopping knows how food can be bought cheaply and good hearty meals prepared freshly every day i.e Aldi/Lidl/Supervalu specials every week for 39c to 59c!!! Basic, fish/meat and 2 veg type dinners for practically nothing v's the cost of going to the chipper, if your interested in doing so (even in a house where both parents work long days!)
(FYI- the DEIS school is aiming for a max of 23 kids per class/teacher...the other school we're in for is looking at 30 to 33 kids per class/teacher)

The family member I mentioned above spent the past year in a DEIS school in West Dublin. Best of facilities, free music classes after school hours, loads of sporting activities, indoor halls etc. They had the breakfast club and free lunches delivered.
They also had homework classes after so the kids weren't home until close to 4 rather than the usual 1.30/2pm.
AND...the teachers took turns to walk the kids home in the evening to certain areas. Whether the parents couldn't be bothered or it was a 'custom' that had developed, I'm not sure. But most of the houses were occupied when the teachers got there....cars in the drive, flat screen tv's on the living room wall blaring away. Nice new council houses and we're not talking about all the parents with drug problems. It was just something extra offered by the school !

Meanwhile, the real 'working class' parents are waiting until their well into their 30's to have kids because the cost of housing and childcare is so high in this country! And then the have to do the sums and see how many they can afford to educate, send to college etc so 2 to 3 kids is the norm.
And Noonan only early last year said that 'house prices were too low and had a bit to go yet'!!!

You couldn't make it up
 
...l a DEIS school nearby. We got the 'pack' recently and it includes a lunch option- apparently kids in DEIS schools get free lunch every day, and you pick at the start of the year what sort of sambo/fruit/milk etc that you want on each particular day.
I also know from a family member that some DEIS schools also provide free breakfast clubs (if they can get sponsorship/funds).
So thats 2 of the 3 meals a day provided by school.


(FYI- the DEIS school is aiming for a max of 23 kids per class/teacher...the other school we're in for is looking at 30 to 33 kids per class/teacher)

The family member I mentioned above spent the past year in a DEIS school in West Dublin. Best of facilities, free music classes after school hours, loads of sporting activities, indoor halls etc. They had the breakfast club and free lunches delivered.
They also had homework classes after so the kids weren't home until close to 4 rather than the usual 1.30/2pm.
AND...the teachers took turns to walk the kids home in the evening to certain areas.

As Purple quite rightly pointed out, the parents are probably the biggest factor when it comes to child poverty. The measures above for DEIS schools are IMO to be applauded. In the grand scheme of things, this looks like a good spend of taxpayers money.
 
Deis Schools were set up to solve problems for pupils who suffered disadvantages. I hear there are two types of Deis School (Deis 1 + 2). Generally, these schools are not on demand by better off people who want their children educated. There are exceptions though. The schools attract help from government and sponsorship from anybody willing to help. Close even one Deis school and suddenly you will have chaos. These schools accept pupils that would not be accepted in mainstream schools in a million years. We can argue on what is a good parent etc, but the bottom line is Deis schools are needed and they are doing a bloody good job.

Let's go back to St-Vincent de Paul for a moment. I had my disagreements with the organisation many years ago and boycotted them for quite a long time. I saw StVdeP as fanning the flames of poverty rather than solving the problem. I have changed my mind and it is the foremost organisation which I would contribute to now. Take StVdP out of the equation and look at what help for the poor is left.

Every Deis School and every Charity is being taken advantage of in some way. There are always the people who will screw the system. This is not the exclusive domain of the poorer among us. Take 3rd Level Grants for instance, a couple of junior civil servants probably would not have their 3rd Level offspring qualify for the Grant. Yet, there are the richer people who can show losses in their earnings (through playing the system) and qualify easily for the 3rd Level Grants. There are only two ways to treat this abuse and that is by ceasing the Grant or allowing it for every 3rd Level student. I can bring to homes of junior civil servants who have to work part-time in bars to keep their loved ones in college while the publican enjoys 3rd Level Grants for theirs on the same courses. Politicians need the likes of 3rd Level Grants to boost their popularity.

We can all point the finger to those refusing to work and illegally taking unemployment monies every week. It is not just the poor amongst us that abuse the system either. The Gardaí and Dept of Social Welfare could do more in tracing the abusers too. But, remember those instances a couple of years ago when opposition TD's jumped in against the Dept of Soc Welfare. What Civil Servant would put his butt on the line when TD's have carte-blanche to ridicule them?

I haven't read all the posts above yet, but I will.
 
Fintan O'Toole is rightly angry about child poverty in Ireland in today's Irish Times.
I agree with most of what he says but he doesn't address what is probably the biggest factor; the parents of those children. There is no financial excuse for a child to be hungry. There is no financial excuse for them not to be clean and, most of all, there is no financial excuse for them not to be in school. The solution to poverty is education and facilities and resources for children in socially deprived areas have improved out of all recognition over the last 20 years (and rightly so). There is still more that could be done but the point is that educational outcomes have not improved by a corresponding amount. That is not the fault of teachers or the government or the state or the "right wingers" as Mr. O'Toole deridingly calls those who disagree with him.

Agreed to a certain extent, but we are probably (by we I mean Fintan too) combining different issues into the one to make a point. The cleanliness and schooling of a child are separate and are down to parenting...possibly. But as is then mentioned, how are we measuring cleanliness? As a later poster comments on his journeys through the heart of post-apocalyptic zones of Ireland with dirty scoundrels wandering around unsupervised...kids play and get dirty. I did. Are we a talking about kids turning up at school dirty and unwashed with unwashed clothes? Well before we start throwing out our examples of driving through working class areas or social housing areas, where are these kids coming from? UK programmes like Benefits Street have helped with some confirmation bias on people living in corpo housing, which is great and helps us feel better about lack of state help in child poverty. But that's not what Fintan is really referring to. We are getting back to the old tenements, whether it be immigrants or otherwise. These aren't families spending welfare on 50in TVs and Sky Sports, these are families who don't get social housing, can't afford the rents and have to live in shared occupancy buildings with skant hygiene facilities. That is poverty, that is where we are very quickly heading.

Let's not let confirmation bias of a small faction of the unemployed absolve us of not caring about real poverty under our noses.

For these families their only salvation is SvP and the clothing and food it can supply.

You're right, there are a small minority of parents who are just plain negligent. But that's not everyone, that's not the norm.

Schooling would be great, if you were guaranteed a spot at local school. If the school were any good and not over crowded and under funded. If it didn't cost a fortune to get the uniform, books and other supplies, if it didn't involve a 6am start and two buses to get to a school. If you thought that the school or the state was actually putting any effort into educating your child while they were there.

I just don't think it easy to be so dismissive of a real problem by generalising as to the group of people affected nor to say that for the vast majority of those living in real poverty, that the parents aren't already giving everything they possibly can to their children.

Completely agree. No amount of money is going to solve this unless that money is directed towards preventing certain people from having kids in the first place, at least until they have somehow shown they will adhere to the basic norms of a functioning society!

Sweet. Mother. Of. God. You'd be better served in the 1920s and where you could find a place within the Eugenics movement. Who are these "certain" people you feel should have to prove they're a good parent?

That is quite simply an utterly abhorent statement to make.
 
I work in a socially deprived area. The difference between the kids and young men whose parents value education and those who don't is stark. Their ability to learn, to interact and their ambition to build a good life for themselves is vastly different. It takes an exceptional person to get out from under parental role models who are negative and defeatist and just play the system.

Let us not pretend that such people constitute a small proportion of our fellow citizens.
Let's also not pretend that such attitudes are confined to the socially deprived or for want of a better phrase, the welfare class.
Those lucky enough to have been born into working families but who play the system, do nixers and don't pay their taxes are exactly the same sort of people. If we are going to introduce eugenics and go back to 1970's Sweden then we can't confine it to the unemployed, not that I would ever advocate such a thing.

Social mobility is linked to education more than anything else. Homework clubs etc. are essential where parents aren't able to help children with their studies. It will take many years to have a more equal society but throwing money at symptoms won't solve things. I am not advocating welfare cuts but we need to acknowledge that welfare treats the symptoms but will never solve the problem of poverty.


The use of such terms as upper class and working class are not only outmoded (they come from an age when people were uneducated and not socially emancipated) but they act as a straightjacket on peoples aspirations and attitudes. This is a republic and should be a classless society. If that’s what we want then we need to look afresh at what we are doing because the left-wing or right-wing visions of income redistribution haven’t worked. The right wants to punish the poor and the Left wants to punish the rich. The right sees virtue in wealth and the left sees virtue in poverty. The right sees the poor as parasites and the left want to tax the rich heavily because they resent the success of others.

All of that nonsense needs to be left in the past. There will be no glorious socialist revolution and if Atlas shrugs it won’t make much difference to the rest of us.

Free from socialist dogma or any other “isms” how do we break the cycle of child poverty?
 
Dammit Purple, I was reading all that thinking, "yes", "exactly", "completely agree", all the while expecting you to outline the solution towards the end of your post!
What you're outlining requires a mindset change in society but quite how you can persuade those who don't believe in education or working within the system to do so is no easy task. Clearly most of us are persuaded by the carrot of better prospects available to children with a good education but there are many who don't believe in or are convinced by this carrot. So do we adopt the stick for these (either by hitting benefits or whatever)? Or do we make a greater effort at persuading that the carrot is worth pursuing? Obviously the latter sounds better but how to we as a society go about that?
 
Sweet. Mother. Of. God. You'd be better served in the 1920s and where you could find a place within the Eugenics movement. Who are these "certain" people you feel should have to prove they're a good parent?

That is quite simply an utterly abhorent statement to make.

OTT repsonse! I didn't mention eugenics or the like. The great Socialist utopia that is Sweden (I think it was) had a pilot programme whereby they identified girls at risk of getting pregnant early on in life and gave them an allowance to take a long term contraceptive rather than pay children's allowance after the event. This allowed the girls in question to get further education , jobs etc.
But of course something like that in Ireland would be seen as a negative!

If people want to plough ahead regardless and have kids, then so be it. But don't expect to get rewarded with free houses and all the other benefits.

I also don't think the people we're talking about here have to pay for uniforms books etc. All are provided free of charge or for a nominal charge in most cases as I understand it.
Resources are being thrown at these people and at the schools in question....often at the expense of the educations of kids of law abiding, working families.

Throwing money at the problem is not working and will not work. Alternative approaches are needed
 
There is no amount of money that will overcome the damaging influence of parents who just don't care about their children's education and therefore their children's future. The section of society who teaches their children to give up before they start, to screw the system, to not respect the Gardaí or their teachers or to obey the law.

Ironically some people can only educate their children by screwing the system !
 
Dammit Purple, I was reading all that thinking, "yes", "exactly", "completely agree", all the while expecting you to outline the solution towards the end of your post!
What you're outlining requires a mindset change in society but quite how you can persuade those who don't believe in education or working within the system to do so is no easy task. Clearly most of us are persuaded by the carrot of better prospects available to children with a good education but there are many who don't believe in or are convinced by this carrot. So do we adopt the stick for these (either by hitting benefits or whatever)? Or do we make a greater effort at persuading that the carrot is worth pursuing? Obviously the latter sounds better but how to we as a society go about that?

I'll have a go....


"The best social program is a job"
Ronald Regan.
 
I'll have a go....


"The best social program is a job"
Ronald Regan.
Yes, but that's not much good to a child.
The issue is how to we equip children with both the skills to do a job and the desire to get one.
 
Yes, but that's not much good to a child.
The issue is how to we equip children with both the skills to do a job and the desire to get one.

Should have explained it a bit better..I was referring to the child's parents having a job. There should be a better carrot & stick approach to achievng this...better incentives to take work, harsher penalties if they don't. Children with working parents are better off IMO...it sets them up as workers in adulthood
 
We can talk around the subject of Child Poverty for ever. Our Social Services must bear some responsibility to ensure children are being treated fairly by their parents. I bet you one thing - say Firefly, Purple, Ceist Beag, Delboy, Deimovre and of course myself Leper were seen smacking a child publicly in a petrol station. I have no doubt there would be people ringing the Gardaí and we would be questioned before our car engines ran cold. But, parents can leave a child go to school hungry, half-dressed, sexually molested, unstable because of being forced to watch blue movies, plied with alcohol, drugged and and nothing will happen to the parents.

Our social services must take the blame; God knows, they are being paid enough. The least they can do is their job.
 
Our social services must take the blame; God knows, they are being paid enough. The least they can do is their job.
Are you talking about the procedures and rules that social workers must work within Leper, or the social workers themselves? I wouldn't be quick to criticise social workers as theirs is one tough and, I'm sure at times upsetting, job. What would you have them do here - remove the children? If so, just how many children can the state support (and lets be honest, the state isn't exactly exemplary in it's record in caring for children is it!)?
The problem is much, much more complex than simply getting the parents back to work or placing the children in foster homes. First and foremost imho, and I think I'm on the same lines as Delboy in this, the solution should be to discourage couples from having children until they are financially ready to support them. I wouldn't go as far as Delboy in saying we should prevent them from having kids (how on earth would you do that!) but I do think there are ways you could strongly discourage it.
 
Are you talking about the procedures and rules that social workers must work within Leper, or the social workers themselves? I wouldn't be quick to criticise social workers as theirs is one tough and, I'm sure at times upsetting, job. What would you have them do here - remove the children? If so, just how many children can the state support (and lets be honest, the state isn't exactly exemplary in it's record in caring for children is it!)?
The problem is much, much more complex than simply getting the parents back to work or placing the children in foster homes. First and foremost imho, and I think I'm on the same lines as Delboy in this, the solution should be to discourage couples from having children until they are financially ready to support them. I wouldn't go as far as Delboy in saying we should prevent them from having kids (how on earth would you do that!) but I do think there are ways you could strongly discourage it.

I have little confidence in our Social Services. Just remember what happened in Wexford some years ago for example. (Was there an inquiry that the public were made aware of the results?]. I don't know if our Social Services are conducting a pro-active campaign or are they just reacting to individual problems. As for theirs being an "upsetting" job; well they were not pressganged into that work and if they are prepared to draw their wages and expenses they should be able to do for what they are paid.

School teachers and School Principals are at the forefront in recognising child abuse. They could be the first port of call for a scared child. I just wonder what your average school principal thinks of our social services.

How often are negligent parent(s) prosecuted? How often are children removed from homes? How often do the social workers get the Gardaí involved? Being unemployed is no excuse for any kind of child abuse. How often are foster homes checked by our Social Services? Do they check up continuously on the care for adopted children?

If our social services are so good, why did a parent choose to abandon a child in the countryside near Naas, rather than give the child up for adoption or fostering? My opinion is that the parent didn't trust our social services.

So let's look at the "solution" of discouraging couples who are financially unsound to have children. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I reckon many such couples see children as an earner. If this wasn't the case, there would be much more children offered for adoption.

So what's the alternative to our social services? I don't know, but from listening to spokespeople from different "shelters" I get the feeling they can do a better job with less.
 
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