PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE COMBAT POVERTY REPORT “WOMEN AND POVERTY IN IRELAND”
PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE COMBAT POVERTY REPORT “WOMEN AND POVERTY IN IRELAND” THURSDAY, 27TH MAY, 1999
May I begin by thanking the Combat Poverty Agency and especially its Director, Hugh Frazer, for their kind invitation to launch “Women and Poverty in Ireland” – a valuable and incisive examination of the causes and effects of female poverty in Ireland today.
It is a subject in which I have a keen interest and which the authors have presented clearly and comprehensively. The report takes as its starting point the results of the 1994 Living in Ireland Survey, which show that the risk of poverty for women remains higher than that for men. Ominously it also shows that the poverty risk for female-headed households is increasing relative to male-or couple-headed households.
We need to ask ourselves how this has arisen? Ten years ago, our present prosperity as a society, would have seemed a utopian but impossible dream. We can justifiably take pride in all we have achieved, not least, as a result of the contribution made by women in this country. For I believe that the broadening of educational, training and employment opportunities for women which released so much pent-up energy and locked-up talent, has played a significant role in our current economic success and cultural confidence. The experience of women is proof that the more we broaden opportunities for other marginalised groups – the disabled, the poor, the socially excluded – the greater economic and social rewards we can expect to reap as a nation.
Yet this report demonstrates that we still have some distance to travel, not least in the case of women. We cannot afford to let pride in our achievements hide the reality of the poverty that still faces so many women. We cannot count ourselves as a total success unless all our people are enabled to share the benefits of that prosperity. We need to know why it is that the risk of poverty among female headed households – far from declining – actually rose between 1987 and 1994.
Perhaps this report’s greatest success is in the way it isolates the causes for this position, and pinpoints factors such as household composition, the economic status of household members and dependency on welfare payments as major contributory factors in the relatively declining position of women. If we know the causes, we can create informed solutions, and this has been one of the major achievements of organisations such as the Combat Poverty Agency and the Economic and Social Research Institute. Their primary research on poverty and social exclusion issues, as well as careful analyses of existing data, sheds light both on the problems that we face and potential solutions. It then boils down to whether we as a society possess the will and commitment to make equality and the elimination of poverty, in all its facets, the goal to which all our energies are directed. I believe that we do. More important this generation more than any other has the resources of money and insight to ensure a new script is written.
There are some who would wring their hands and tell us ‘the poor are always with us’ or ‘if you lived in my day, you’d know what hardship really was!’ There are others who know that nothing is impossible if we have enough goodwill and determination – look at our economic and cultural success. They know, too, that poverty is always relative, not an absolute because it relates to the way we experience our world, the resources and opportunities we can offer our children in relation to the children of others. We must look at the figures, but also beyond the figures to the reality of the lives they describe.
This report shows us that we cannot afford to become complacent. But I do not see this as a report that simply offers us bad news. In fact, it offers hope to poorer women and women in general – in the sense that it identifies the relevant issues and presents us with opportunities for action.
And one must think how much worse the situation might be were it not for the numerous women’s groups working in both rural and urban areas who provide support for women in all circumstances. I have visited many of these groups since becoming President and their dedication and commitment to improving the lives of women – particularly those from disadvantaged areas – is an example to us all and one which deserves the utmost praise. Community groups have a unique role in the sense that they experience the problems of poverty and exclusion on a day-to-day basis, in a real and living environment, and, as such, can effectively contribute to tackling these problems at their roots. They cannot do so on their own – they can only be truly successful if the system within which they operate identifies and tackles inequality. But they are a major component in finding and implementing solutions.
Finding that solution and making it work here in Ireland offers hope not just to the women of Ireland but to the many women world-wide who are still waiting, waiting in quiet despair and desperation for their own liberation from cultures of stultifying oppression and hardship. I think today of the women of Honduras who carry an unequal share of the burden of rebuilding their poor, devastated country. 80% of their households are headed by women alone – women who have to find the heart and energy to get up in the morning, make the bricks which will give them a home, cope with a culture of domestic violence which further robs them of hope and self-confidence. Let us hope the efforts that are made here will be successful and be a witness to a better world.
We speak, perhaps tiringly so, of new approaches and outlooks as we approach the year 2000. Yet each unlived day ahead offers a place to start anew. This report can help us make that start. Once again, may I congratulate, Brian Nolan and Dorothy Watson, the authors of “Women and Poverty in Ireland”.