Debate contribution: Child Poverty

Debate contribution by Mr Mark Durkan on 15 April 2024.

MLA

Mr Mark Durkan

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

15 April 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Child Poverty

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4483030

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Creating a society where every child has a fair chance to thrive should be not an ideal but a basic tenet of any democracy. If Governments are judged on how they treat their most vulnerable citizens, surely the fact that one in five children lives in relative poverty — rising to one in four in more deprived areas — is a damning indictment on leadership here. Food bank usage and the number of homeless young families are at a record high. How has that been allowed to happen? Poverty is a lived reality for a growing number of families in Northern Ireland because leadership parties here put short-term political popularity over doing what is right for the people whom they purport to represent. Figures that I requested from Minister Lyons show an 18% increase in the number of children living in relative poverty, before housing costs, in just one year. As of 2023, 109,000 children were deprived of the basic necessities. To those who held these institutions to ransom for five of the past seven years and prevented action, I say this: you should be ashamed of the Dickensian conditions that you have helped the Tories to create. Poverty is a complex issue, but understanding why child poverty is so pronounced here is not that difficult an equation to solve. The child poverty strategy ended in 2022 in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis and an economy reeling in a post-pandemic landscape. While there was plenty to criticise about that strategy, now we have none — nothing. Furthermore, where is the anti-poverty strategy? The previous Communities Minister gave assurances that it would be implemented in the previous mandate. Minister Lyons says that he is considering the next steps, but where is the sense of urgency? The lackadaisical approach to date adds insult to injury. We welcome an amendment that recognises the need for the anti-poverty strategy to be brought forward, and we will support any effort to do that, except where it removes any sense of urgency to do so. I fear that the amendment does remove urgency. We were considering opposing it for that reason, but the fact that the DUP and Sinn Féin are supporting it confirms to me that it lets them off the hook and allows them to kick the can even further down the road. Children growing up in poverty here have worse outcomes in mental health and education. In deprived regions like Derry, today's weans have a life expectancy that is 11 to 15 years less than those in more affluent areas. That is harrowing, and it underlines the need for concerted efforts, as others have said, across all Departments to tackle regional imbalance.

Certainly.

I thank the Member for his intervention. It will come as no surprise to him that I do agree. It is refreshing and heartening to hear the right noises being made by Ministers. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. We need to see action as well as hear words. Poverty is a vicious cycle. It entraps families and is nigh on impossible to escape from. We need to foster the conditions to create jobs and equip people here to do them. Tackling child poverty requires, as, I think, everyone has said, a multifaceted approach. I think that "multifaceted" is the word of the day. Economic challenges, such as low wages and colossal childcare costs, place immense strain on families who are already struggling to make ends meet. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that a significant number of children living in poverty had at least one working parent, whereas lone parents had the highest level of in-work poverty. I have serious concerns that the universal credit migration will exacerbate that situation. For example, under that system, the threshold criteria for free school meals and uniform grants will drop from £16,000 to £14,000. At a time when welfare eligibility thresholds should consider inflationary increases, welfare reform, which my party campaigned against vociferously, will see thousands of low-income households stripped of support. Even those who are eligible for free school meals face a cruel summer as we await Executive action on holiday hunger. Families here are no longer just about managing. Under callous Tory policy, compounded by Executive absence and apathy, they are teetering on the brink. The Tory assault on the poor and the political malaise here have left families falling through widening gaps in a social security net that has been allowed to wear thin. Systemic barriers that are entrenched in our polices and institutions will perpetuate cycles of poverty across generations. We need to stem that trend now, or society will pay dearly in the future. Anywhere that fails to invest in its children undermines its own future prosperity.

794 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:00 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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