Press Release: SDLP

SDLP

The level of poverty in Northern Ireland has been overshadowed by the attention given to ‘the peace process’ and has derailed any serious anti-poverty strategy that is capable of tackling head on the continuing inequality between people.

East Derry SDLP Assembly Member John Dallat who has backed the campaign by the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA) to develop a robust and effective anti-poverty strategy.

He said:

The SDLP is indebted to NICVA for the support they have given to the voluntary sector over many years and in particular their concern for people affected by poverty and inequality issues.

A recent survey entitled the ‘Bare Necessities’ showed that 30% of households headed by SDLP supporters were poor. These are people who solidly supported the campaign of non-violence down through the years. They backed the Good Friday Agreement and the whole drive for equality. Government needs to reward them and all other people experiencing poverty by putting in place a proper strategy to deliver and this they have failed to do.

Shamefully government proposals for an anti-poverty strategy contain no targets, no commitment to a proper budget to combat poverty, no analysis of the causes of poverty and no action to tackle the unacceptable gap between the rich and the poor in our society. This is the view of NICVA and the SDLP is in total agreement with them.

Time and time again we have argued that education is the most powerful tool that anyone can have to disarm poverty yet we are still struggling with more than 20% of the adult population not able to read and write at the lowest level needed to hold down a job or interpret basic instructions. Money needed to support community education has been withdrawn. Centres like ‘Hands that Talk’ in Dungiven which has brought new independence and new hope to the deaf has not escaped as government has taken its eyes off the ball as the bullyboys in paramilitary gangs continue to hog the headlines and the attention of government.

In my own constituency of East Derry health, employment and social deprivation rank unacceptably high and need the benefits of a proper strategy. Low wages, the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, the lack of comprehensive childcare and an acute shortage of social housing are only a few of the issues which are not being taken seriously by a direct rule regime which is no substitute for a local assembly dedicated and resourced to end the shocking poverty scandal.

The SDLP has a long and proud record of fighting for the rights or ordinary people who are all too often the forgotten victims of three decades of turmoil when so many people lost their lives and public funds which should have gone to alleviating social deprivation was spent on security.