Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-02-11-Speech-3-178"
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"en.20040211.7.3-178"2
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".
I am sure the honourable Member would not want me to dwell on the excellent policies – in particular the social inclusion policies – that the government of Ireland has recently introduced, but would perhaps want me to make sure that I address this appropriately in a Council dimension.
In my reply I made the particular point that even in affluent areas – indeed the Member mentioned an area which is generally perceived as very affluent, and quite rightly so – there is poverty and deprivation.
One of the issues we face in Ireland is that, in many ways – particularly when people produce statistics to support the kind of contention which has just been made – we are the victims of our own success; that is one of the charges which is made. I am aware that some of the studies focused on in the honourable Member's question have suggested, for example, that in Ireland a lower proportion of GDP is devoted to social protection than in the rest of the EU. The figures often used are 14% or 14.7%, compared with an EU average of 27.5%. That is where some of these basic comparisons are made. That is, however, a statistical aberration if you look in detail at the statistical base on which the comparisons are made. Ireland's GDP, for example, is up to 15% more than its gross national income. That is very unusual in a Member State. It arises largely because of the nature of our economic development, as the honourable Member will know, and arises predominantly because of repatriation of capital funds. Social protection, as a percentage of GDP, would be over 70%, which is a more realistic indicator.
Rather than get involved in a big statistical debate, the point can, and should, be made that poverty and pockets of poverty will be found in any society, irrespective of how affluent it is. That is why anti-poverty programmes must be more strategically focused and based on listening experiences, and we in the Irish presidency are trying to achieve this.
Poverty is very much a relative issue. Any objective observer would say that most Member States – including my own Member State – have done extremely well recently. However, one always has to be focused on the specific type of poverty which was addressed in the supplementary question and which I sought to address in my original response. Individual pockets will inevitably occur. However, to get back to reality, the situation in the place we both hail from is rather better than the prognosis sometimes suggests."@en1
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