Stark warning on child poverty in Northern Ireland
Dire warnings about the extent of child poverty in Northern Ireland have come from the children’s commissioner for children and young people.
Koulla Yiasouma stated that up to a quarter of NI children experience poverty, and have done so over the past two decades.
And she warned that without government action on the cost of living crisis, the prospects for children in the poorest households were bleak.
The commissioner was speaking at a recent ‘Eradicating Child Poverty’ event at St Mary’s University College in Belfast.
After the conference she tweeted: “Unless there is action from our government things will get much worse. Worse for the 110,000 currently living in poverty and for the many more children who are likely to join them.
“I don’t think we are prepared for how awful it will be for so many families.
“The current level of poverty is a political choice, and a genuine wrap around service is what is needed - we need to refuse to put up with child poverty any longer.”
There have been calls for action and demonstrations over the number of children in Northern Ireland who are living in poverty.
Yiasouma told the Feile An Phobail event that she was surprised more people weren’t on the streets demonstrating about child poverty.
She said the issue had been among her top priorities when she became children’s commissioner seven years ago, but while she had seen progress elsewhere, there has been “inertia around children in poverty”.
Two out of three children in poverty in Northern Ireland are in working households.
Ms Yiasouma described the rise in the number of families relying on food banks to feed their children as a ‘disgrace’.
There are also predictions that more than 70 per cent of households in Northern Ireland will be in fuel poverty by January 2023.
Speaking at the conference, the commissioner said: “It’s government’s responsibility to ensure that children are not living in poverty, and it’s government’s responsibility to make sure there is an adequate social security system and safety net for our families.”
She has called for wide-ranging benefit reforms and accessible childcare to help struggling families.
“It’s not going to be cheap… but the price for not doing it is bigger, it’s bigger for our education system, it’s bigger for our health system but also it’s bigger because of what we’re doing to the life outcomes of our children living in poverty. We can’t afford not to do it,” she said.
The commissioner also recently hit out at schools charging up to £600 for uniform during a cost of living crisis.
She told schools to “wise up” and realise that charging a premium for uniform amid increasing pressure on parents is unrealistic.
The commissioner said the problem is “only going to get worse” and has called on school boards of governors to be “more flexible and inclusive” adding the current school uniform grant in Northern Ireland is “nowhere near enough”.