The Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025 is a whole of Government strategy with the ambitious aim of reducing consistent poverty to 2 per cent or less and to make Ireland one of the most socially inclusive member states in the EU. The Roadmap was published in January 2020 and contains seven high level goals, with 81 commitments.
Progress towards achieving the aims of the Roadmap are measured using the Survey of Income and Living Standards (SILC), which is published by the Central Statistics office annually. Additional data comes from the EU-SILC, published by Eurostat, which provides comparisons across the 27 EU member states.
Since the publication of the Roadmap in 2020, consistent poverty as reported in the annual SILC data has reduced slightly from 5.6% in 2018 to 5.0% in 2024. While it was disappointing to see an increase from the 2023 rate of 3.6%, it should be noted that the 2024 data is based on 2023 incomes, therefore not taking account of Budget 2024 or Budget 2025 measures.
Under successive Budgets the social welfare packages have been the largest in the history of the State, and the last three Budgets contained significant cost of living packages, only one of which is reflected in the 2024 data. Government has introduced a range of other measures to reduce costs for people throughout the country including a range of energy supports, including energy credits, extending the eligibility of the fuel allowance scheme and introducing hot school meals and free school books.
Additionally, the impact of social transfers and cost-of-living measures show that Government interventions have a positive impact on poverty rates. Without social transfers the at-risk-of-poverty rate in 2024 would have been 31.4%, compared with the rate of 11.7% reported after social transfers. Further, without the cost-of-living measures introduced by Government the 2024 at-risk-of-poverty rate would have been 14.1%, and the consistent poverty rate would have been 5.6%.
However, recognising that certain groups (such as lone parents, the unemployed, people unable to work due to long-standing health issues and renters) continue to experience significantly higher rates of poverty, under the Programme for Government we have committed to continuing to focus on measures to address poverty and social exclusion.
Additionally work has commenced on the development of a successor to the Roadmap for Social Inclusion. A public consultation on this was launched in April and remains open until the end of June. I look forward to hearing the views of all interested parties, and suggestions on how to improve social inclusion and reduce poverty for those most impacted.
