Poverty in Ireland

Purple

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Following on from the fact sheets that Brendan listed here, and from the reports we have all read and heard about in the media for the last 20 years, it is clear that Ireland is a very unequal society before social transfer (taxes and welfare) but a very equal society after social transfer.

I would like to discuss the reason why this is deemed acceptable and why, in my opinion, it is both socially and economically damaging.
Firstly let me say that I want to see the most equal society possible and that this should be the policy of the government.

The problem I have is that we are using taxation and welfare to mask a serious and divisive underlying social issue; a large proportion of the population of this country is not properly equipped to function in mainstream society. If anyone hasn't done so I suggest that they spend a few hours in a district court in a socially deprived area (Tallaght is my local one). You will see, in no uncertain terms, the ruled and the rulers. The people in charge dress differently, talk differently and act differently. The Gardai bridge the gap but there is something distinctly medieval about the whole thing.
Instead of ensuring that that cohort of society have the skills, education and outlook to engage fully in the society the rest of us create and maintain we keep them relatively compliant and comfortable by throwing them scraps in the form of welfare. We do this knowing that we need more than material things to be happy and feel fulfilled. Anyone who has eve lost their job knows the impact it has on their self esteem, their sense of self worth, and yet we think that giving someone a house they don't own and an income they didn't earn is somehow the solution.
Self worth and self respect demand more than that. We live in a country where treating the symptoms of a problem is always enough. There is a reason that we refer to socially deprived areas and not economically deprived areas as poverty is a symptom of a social problem. It is not a root cause.

Knowing this the Charity industry in general, and the homelessness industry in particular, still spends all its time looking for more money, more handouts, more "resources", more of the same things that kill self esteem and self respect. Of course we need to treat symptoms so that the patient doesn't die but we also need to treat root causes so that we break the cycle of inter-generational dependency.
Suicide rates among people on welfare are three times higher than among people who work. Male suicide rates are five times higher than female rates. I don't think it takes a PhD in psychology to see the link here. Where are the voices in the charity sector talking about this? Where are the empty vessels in People before Profit, or whatever they call themselves now? It strikes me that most who claim to be interested in this issue are really pushing a socialist agenda which is more about attacking wealth than alleviating poverty.
Rather that just taking from those who can provide for themselves and giving to those who cannot why not move the main focus onto ensuring that more people can actually provide for themselves?
The vacuum of long term inter-generational unemployment, under-employment and welfare dependence is more likely to be filled with addiction, crime, domestic abuse and general anti-social behaviour than areas where more people work.

We are failing a sizable cohort of our citizens.
What should we do about it?
 
I want to see the most equal society possible and that this should be the policy of the government.

As Miriam might say, let me stop you there.

Why?

I don't want to see an equal society. I actually believe that people who have studied and trained for ten years to qualify as a medical specialist and who work 80 hour weeks should earn far more than someone who has never done a day's work in their life.

I think that a 65 year old who has worked for 40 years should have more wealth than someone who is just leaving college (Age is a big determiner of inequality.)

I want to see an 80 year old who has saved up for their retirement being better off than an 80 year old who lived a flamboyant lifestyle and now has no money left.

I would like to see people who are working in low paid jobs getting priority for social housing close to where they work over people who have never worked and have no intention of working.

And I believe that someone who lives within their means and chooses to pay for private health insurance should get better and faster health care than someone who chooses to spend their money on drink and cigarettes.

I want to see a fair society where work and risk are rewarded and people who choose not to work are poor.

I would like to see equality of opportunity, but acknowledge that the children of wealthy parents have much better opportunities, so government policy should try to redress this imbalance in some way. Deis schools is a good example, although I am not sure if they are working.

Brendan
 
Our government have turned to the private sector and introduced Turas and Seetac, the premise being force them into a job, any job. A policy change doomed to fail like what is happening in the UK.
 
I would like to see equality of opportunity, but acknowledge that the children of wealthy parents have much better opportunities, so government policy should try to redress this imbalance in some way. Deis schools is a good example, although I am not sure if they are working.
Yes, it's about equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.
An equal society to me is one where every child has the same educational and social resources and economic resources offer a minimal advantage. DEIS schools are a great idea but cannot work to their full potential in a vacuum.
 
Our government have turned to the private sector and introduced Turas and Seetac, the premise being force them into a job, any job. A policy change doomed to fail like what is happening in the UK.
I don't see anything wrong with Turas or Seetac but they just deal with what's there, they don't change anything.
 
Our government have turned to the private sector and introduced Turas and Seetac, the premise being force them into a job, any job. A policy change doomed to fail like what is happening in the UK.
I don't want to get in too deep .
The way it is set up in Ireland Is the get more money for placing long term than short term but there is more money to be made out of getting the people who have a skill already to get a job so they spend most of there time on the easy money. leaving the people who really need help sitting on front of a screen time and money not being spent on the people who really need help , the race to get the people who are going to get a job without there help sorted there are tricks of the trade used to make money ,


The government have the same mind set to unemployed as the had when they brought in the rent controls the finished up only being in the way,
 
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That is an excellent opening post Purple.

Inequality is, as you say both socially and economically damaging.

While Brendan's objections to equality of outcome are valid points individually, inequality of outcome is bad for everyone. Its consequences in terms of crime and other anti-social behaviour effect all of society.

I especially like your point that that the reduction in inequality after social transfers masks the scale and indeed the nature of the problem we have in Ireland. The problem being a large cohort of people who are unable to engage economically with life. This will only get worse as the demands of the the economy in terms of educational standards required in the workforce increase.

The educational system is unfortunately moving away from addressing this problem. There is a conscious effort being made by the department of Education to move the JC cycle to being child centred and focused on wellbeing. This is denying a generation any understanding that literacy and numeracy are important in themselves. The world of work will be closed to kids who leave school without those.

What should we do about it ?

We should provide the opportunity for a solid education in employable skills in the broadest sense to those kids who are able to benefit from it. Inadequate though that maybe for many it will at least give some an opportunity to escape their background.
 
This is actually a great post, opened my eyes when I read Brendan's take on the Equality issue but he's right in one way and in another way there's an awful lot of the others who would lambaste him.
Take the good man/woman, pays for everything, does their best almost always but for whatever reason they come before the courts and the book is thrown at them. Now, take the other section of society, they pay for nothing, complain about everything, take everything in sight, want everything for nothing, talk to Joe on a permanent basis, but they also come before the courts. They'll have no legal bills, everything will be paid for, more than likely their cases will be looked on very sympathetically, their social/living hardships will be put to the fore by their legal brief and no way will the book be thrown at them. Sometimes, one has to just stand there and wonder what's right and wrong and who's fooling who?
 
Now, take the other section of society, they pay for nothing, complain about everything, take everything in sight, want everything for nothing, talk to Joe on a permanent basis, but they also come before the courts. They'll have no legal bills, everything will be paid for, more than likely their cases will be looked on very sympathetically, their social/living hardships will be put to the fore by their legal brief and no way will the book be thrown at them. Sometimes, one has to just stand there and wonder what's right and wrong and who's fooling who?
We have to ask the question why; why do we have two societies, one into which your first person fits and the other into which the second person fits. Why is it so hard for the latter to move away from the sub-society they live in and why is it so easy to stay there? What are we doing as a society to break the cycle of social inadequacy, mainly perpetuated by parents who don't have the educational or life skills to teach their children any better?
 
I've seen children from supposedly inadequate family circumstances and neighborhoods who wouldn't be long teaching anyone a lesson in financial survival. Believe me. I'm sick and tired of the sob stories, the depression, the why me mentality, the snowflakes and the media obsession with their stories.
Very simple as to why we have the two tier society, or three tier society for that matter. In an awful lot of cases it's by choice and we'll always have at least 2 tiers.
 
Take the good man/woman, pays for everything, does their best almost always but for whatever reason they come before the courts and the book is thrown at them.

Now, take the other section of society, ... more than likely their cases will be looked on very sympathetically, their social/living hardships will be put to the fore by their legal brief and no way will the book be thrown at them.

This is reality. I was recently involved as a witness in a fairly horrible criminal case. The guard gathering the evidence, out of nowhere, gave me a lecture on the difficult background etc that the perpetrator came from and how we could not expect the same standards of behaviour from such people as we might expect from people coming from more privileged backgrounds. Real ideological stuff.
 
We should provide the opportunity for a solid education in employable skills in the broadest sense to those kids who are able to benefit from it. Inadequate though that maybe for many it will at least give some an opportunity to escape their background.
Yes, education is the great equaliser and it is the best solution to break the cycle for kids but what do we do for people over the age of 15 or 16?
 
This is reality. I was recently involved as a witness in a fairly horrible criminal case. The guard gathering the evidence, out of nowhere, gave me a lecture on the difficult background etc that the perpetrator came from and how we could not expect the same standards of behaviour from such people as we might expect from people coming from more privileged backgrounds. Real ideological stuff.
The reality is that it's no big deal to go to prison for some people as they have no job and no social status to lose.
 
The guard gathering the evidence, out of nowhere, gave me a lecture on the difficult background etc that the perpetrator came from and how we could not expect the same standards of behaviour from such people as we might expect from people coming from more privileged backgrounds.

The behaviour cannot be excused and society has to be protected. However, the behaviour can often be predicted from an early age. Children do not choose their parents but they learn form them and surrounding sub-culture. We can get exasperated and angry about this - very understandably so - but that in itself does nothing about it.Purple's post points to possible ways to tackle the issue. It is long term and far from simple to achieve. It costs, but certainly no more than perpetual welfare and/or the criminal justice system.
 
I've seen children from supposedly inadequate family circumstances and neighborhoods who wouldn't be long teaching anyone a lesson in financial survival. Believe me. I'm sick and tired of the sob stories, the depression, the why me mentality, the snowflakes and the media obsession with their stories.
Very simple as to why we have the two tier society, or three tier society for that matter. In an awful lot of cases it's by choice and we'll always have at least 2 tiers.
I don't think anyone here is making excuses, rather they are looking for reasons. The law should be applied to everyone equally but the reality is that it will still have a much greater impact on someone with a job and a mortgage who lives in an area and is part of a social group where being convicted of a crime is socially unacceptable.
 
We have to ask the question why; why do we have two societies, one into which your first person fits and the other into which the second person fits. Why is it so hard for the latter to move away from the sub-society they live in and why is it so easy to stay there? What are we doing as a society to break the cycle of social inadequacy, mainly perpetuated by parents who don't have the educational or life skills to teach their children any better?
We have to ask the question why; why do we have two societies, one into which your first person fits and the other into which the second person fits. Why is it so hard for the latter to move away from the sub-society they live in and why is it so easy to stay there? What are we doing as a society to break the cycle of social inadequacy, mainly perpetuated by parents who don't have the educational or life skills to teach their children any better?
Posters seem to shifting there positions which is to be welcomed, What are we as a society doing to break the cycle of inadequacy very little . We need to be questioning who is allowing this to happen and why. I think lots don't have the network to better themselves . The chances of the people you talk about in your first post getting a life changing break and making something of there life is slim ,

Back in the eighties my Daughter spent weeks on end in a Dublin Hospital over several years I traveled all around Dublin looking at the neglected building and streets you could see back then the money was not being spent in Dublin compared to the rest of the country , I could see back then we were not spending money like we were in other parts of the Country, Other parts gained at there expense ,Parts of Dublin got hands out other parts of the Country got a hand up now we are paying the price,

some posters seam to think the stole the hand outs and are blaming them ,

the Question is on who's watch was it allowed to happen are you happy to keep on supporting the people who allowed it to happen then you are not really interested in changing the system that got us to where we are today,

Judges have being sending us a message for a long time no point in taking it out on the people up in front of them take it out on the people who allowed it to happen if you want change,
 
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No, I don't agree with you at all RETIRED 2017. No matter what's done there will always be the poorer section of society, always, and not just in Ireland. Nowdays, when driving too fast is mentioned, cyclists breaking traffic lights, underage sex, homosexuality, etc, etc, we're told that the school has to be the place children will learn the right way, blah, blah, blah. If it's smoking, obesity, drinking, we blame our hospitals, dr's, teachers, etc, for not getting the message across. I could go on and on but what's the point? What we never do is blame the parents, tell them how un-responsible they are, how they've got to get their act together, how they have to take on the task of parenthood and not be always saying how they have no resources to give them what's needed and every other excuse in the book. No, a lot of them have invented crime to get what they want, get what hard working people have earned, take it off them by robbing them and using the system to get off with it. I'll help anyone who's hungry and in need but i'll not help those who won't help themselves and this country had an abundance of them, a huge plethora of them and breeding more of them because they're being paid to do it.
I'm not a cold, uncaring person, but it's too obvious to me now that the "talk to Joe" people and others use the system, rob the system, and will try their best to break the system so they can have what they haven't earned and what they believe they should have too, just because they can. Rant over, but mean every bit of it.
 
I don't disagree with you noproblem but given that bad parenting is the root cause of a lot of this what should we do? Do we sterilise the long term unemployed, those with multiple convictions? Do we take their children from them and put them into care? The Swedish practiced eugenics until the 1970's but thankfully it never took here. We did put kids into homes. We all know how that turned out.

So, given that we aren't building the Master Race and we have signed up to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights how do we as a society deal with children whose parents can't or won't parent them properly? It seems to me the choices are the penal system or the education system. I'd prefer the latter. Morality aside it's much cheaper and has been shown to produce better results.
We then have to decide what we do with the parents. The British used to be able to round up their undesirables and send them to the Colonies. We can't do that so we we just forget about them or do we reconstruct our welfare and educational system to stop perpetuating the same cycle of inter-generational dependence?
 
No, I don't agree with you at all RETIRED 2017. No matter what's done there will always be the poorer section of society, always, and not just in Ireland. Nowdays, when driving too fast is mentioned, cyclists breaking traffic lights, underage sex, homosexuality, etc, etc, we're told that the school has to be the place children will learn the right way, blah, blah, blah. If it's smoking, obesity, drinking, we blame our hospitals, dr's, teachers, etc, for not getting the message across. I could go on and on but what's the point? What we never do is blame the parents, tell them how un-responsible they are, how they've got to get their act together, how they have to take on the task of parenthood and not be always saying how they have no resources to give them what's needed and every other excuse in the book. No, a lot of them have invented crime to get what they want, get what hard working people have earned, take it off them by robbing them and using the system to get off with it. I'll help anyone who's hungry and in need but i'll not help those who won't help themselves and this country had an abundance of them, a huge plethora of them and breeding more of them because they're being paid to do it.
I'm not a cold, uncaring person, but it's too obvious to me now that the "talk to Joe" people and others use the system, rob the system, and will try their best to break the system so they can have what they haven't earned and what they believe they should have too, just because they can. Rant over, but mean every bit of it.
No, I don't agree with you at all RETIRED 2017. No matter what's done there will always be the poorer section of society, always, and not just in Ireland. Nowdays, when driving too fast is mentioned, cyclists breaking traffic lights, underage sex, homosexuality, etc, etc, we're told that the school has to be the place children will learn the right way, blah, blah, blah. If it's smoking, obesity, drinking, we blame our hospitals, dr's, teachers, etc, for not getting the message across. I could go on and on but what's the point? What we never do is blame the parents, tell them how un-responsible they are, how they've got to get their act together, how they have to take on the task of parenthood and not be always saying how they have no resources to give them what's needed and every other excuse in the book. No, a lot of them have invented crime to get what they want, get what hard working people have earned, take it off them by robbing them and using the system to get off with it. I'll help anyone who's hungry and in need but i'll not help those who won't help themselves and this country had an abundance of them, a huge plethora of them and breeding more of them because they're being paid to do it.
I'm not a cold, uncaring person, but it's too obvious to me now that the "talk to Joe" people and others use the system, rob the system, and will try their best to break the system so they can have what they haven't earned and what they believe they should have too, just because they can. Rant over, but mean every bit of it.
I know you are not cold I worked almost 49 years I was out of work for around 4 months in the eighties so I worked 48 and a half years with no break , If I was to go out now I would not have to go far to find people Gaming the system but I would pass by a lot of people gaming the system before I would come on the people you are talking about,

What I am saying is there are lots gaming the system but sometimes we don't notice or want to notice and they are costing us a lot more than the people you are taking about .we pretend we don't know who they are and while we do that we are in no position to address what you see as a problem,

The problem you see can never be addressed because deep down we all know they are only a small part of a bigger problem ,

They may not be well educated but they know they are not alone in gaming the
system the also know they are a small part of a bigger problem,


I suspect seeing we turn a blind eye to people who are well off gaming the system
they don't feel two bad taking a few crumbs out of the system to live,
 
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