First Minister Michelle O'Neill and deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly are pictured with Health Minister Mike Nesbitt and Justice Minister Naomi Long at a press conference in Stormont Castle. File photo by Jonathan Porter, Press Eye
FOR the sake of the increasing number of children living in poverty in Northern Ireland there is a dire need for child poverty to be identified as a top priority by government.
But as we listened in to what was being announced by the Executive this week and scanned its draft Programme for Government, there wasn’t a single reference.
Throughout 2024 we have seen a series of reports that have acted as distress flares to prove that child poverty is a growing problem here.
In one, the Northern Ireland Audit Office sounded a warning as it exposed that children living in poverty are being failed badly by government. It found a previous child poverty strategy had set no clear targets and didn’t even have a proper budget.
Then, just weeks later came statistics which revealed there has been a significant 6% rise in the number of children living in poverty over the last few years.
Surely this should have been the wake-up call that the system needed? And yet here we are six months on, with a draft Programme for Government where child poverty remains unspoken. Stormont insists work is ongoing around an anti-poverty strategy but for the sake of the one in four children for whom poverty continues to be their lived reality, we need to see this urgently progressed and delivered.
It is good to see areas such as childcare and greater support for young people with special educational needs flagged as priorities by the Executive.
Poverty is at the heart of issues across health, education and housing but if government isn’t setting out clear actions to address child poverty, we’ll continue to see it blight more young lives.
The stories are all too familiar; the many families now struggling to feed their children and give them the childhoods they long for.
It is vital that decision makers commit to listening intently to children and families so that their experiences inform and shape the design and delivery of a properly funded Anti-Poverty Strategy. Other jurisdictions on these islands are prioritising child poverty, why aren’t we?
Peter Bryson is head of Save the Children Northern Ireland