SDLP: North riven with scourge of child poverty

SDLP Constituency Representative Daniel McCrossan, has said there is a growing mountain of evidence which should ensure that independent child poverty targets are brought in by the Executive.

Mon 25th February

Mr McCrossan was commenting after a report by the End Child Poverty campaign, which mapped child poverty in UK, confirmed that Strabane had an estimated 3303 children living in poverty in 2012, 32% of children across the Strabane district. The report suggests a worrying 46% of children in Castlederg living in poverty, 53% in Ballycolman, 66% in the East Strabane ward, 30% south and 33% East and West wards.

“This map confirms recent research by both Save the Children and the Institute of Fiscal Studies. It confirms that the North is riven with the scourge of child poverty. It confirms that this an on-going crisis which, if left unmet, will leave fundamental social and economic legacies and will leave a generation of children abandoned.

“For some time now, the SDLP has been calling on OFMDFM to formulate individual child poverty targets for the Assembly. This would be separate from Westminster’s Child Poverty statutory legislation and target, a target which the IFS has deemed unachievable given current government policy.

“Until now the call for independent targets, the call for independent responsibility for child poverty here has fallen on deaf ears.

“The body of evidence, however, continues to grow. This is a current crisis which will have the longest of consequences.

“As demonstrated by the Audit Office report into Education, the poverty suffered by children, acts as the prime restriction to educational development at the earliest ages. This means that children are either left playing catch up with their peers in terms of numeracy or literacy, or left behind altogether. This is perhaps the biggest impediment to any sort of social mobility in our society.

“People will, very rightly, view this as a defining test for Stormont's current leadership'.

“If they remain unwilling to take on full responsibility for an issue so important and relevant to the people of the North, the most serious of questions will need to be asked as to whether they are carrying out the expected role of government at all.”