Human Resources Committee on June 12th, 2008

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I also wish to thank the people in Ireland, who are here this morning, for enlightening us with regard to their experience.

With your permission, and perhaps you will find that I am dwelling on this, I would like to come back to the first questions put by Mr. Savage because I believe they are crucial for us. Indeed, what we understand is that you have chosen to combat poverty and at one point in time decided to say that enough is enough and that you were taking position in a fight against poverty.

From what I have read, this was not the first time. You have lived through crises in the past. There have also been debates by the Irish government with regard to this issue in the past. From what I have been able to see, your route has been roughly the same as the one we have followed here. In 1990, for example, there were agreements and commitments to combat poverty. There have, indeed, been measures, but there has been no global strategy like yours, delivering the results we see today. I therefore come back to that.

I do not know who among you will answer, but it seems to me that in 1997, or perhaps before, something took place that was akin to a spark. The answers you have provided are answers that are based upon an analysis, objective facts, but that you also had in the past. However, with regard to the political engagement, it seems that something happened that to some extent sparked a flame and told you that the time had come for you to act.

[Gerry Mangan]

Could I just make a few comments on that?

A number of things came together at that particular time, and one of the first ones was the complexion of the government at the time, in that there was a minister who was from a more left-of-centre government, which probably might have been a factor—but it was still widely supported, so it might still have happened.

Probably what brought it to a head was that there was a UN summit in Copenhagen, a world summit of all the leaders from all the various countries, about combatting poverty. One of the key issues for debate at that stage was the need for a strategic approach. So the minister I mentioned was obviously inspired by that conclusion and got government approval to prepare a strategy and a strategic approach.

Then Kevin's organization, the Combat Poverty Agency, was on hand to assist greatly in this. They began—I think quite wisely, in retrospect—with wide consultation. So it wasn't a question of just a government-imposed strategy, but the fruits of maybe 18 months to two years of consultation with all the stakeholders, including the social partners and the non-governmental organizations. Through that, a fairly modest strategy was developed. But it had all the key elements I mentioned: there was a clear analysis of what the nature and scope of poverty was; there was a desire to set clear objectives and targets for achieving those objectives, and a setting out of what measures were to be taken to meet the targets and objectives; and then there was a system for monitoring them. The social partnership process was very much involved on the monitoring side.

I think everyone recognized the value of a strategic approach, because it was asking, how can we use our resources to the best effect, how can we mobilize all the people who, one way or another—including families at home—are trying to tackle poverty, and how can we deal with people who are disadvantaged, and so on? It's on that basis that I think it caught on. The very value of the process impressed itself on all the people involved, including the people experiencing poverty.

That's been the experience in all of the European countries who have now adopted this strategic approach through the European Union. It is very much what everyone currently recognizes should be done.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

The matter of establishing targets seems to be a great motivator for you. When we look at the path you have followed, we see that at a given point in time you decided to speed up the pace for reaching certain objectives between now and 2012. This is quite fascinating because we see—and you will correct me if I am wrong—that you have achieved quite a remarkable success rate with regard to certain target groups but that there has also been, conversely, an increase for other target groups, for example lone parents and older people.

Could you talk to us a bit about this phenomenon? How did you go about speeding up the reaching of your objectives, whereas things were lagging behind for certain target groups?

[Gerry Mangan]

In terms of speeding things up, it's somewhat amusing when you look back on it. When the targets to reduce poverty were set in 1997, they were set on the basis of older figures, as those were the most available knowledge at that stage. When they came to do a survey of poverty subsequently, they discovered that the targets had already been exceeded when they were set in 1997 because they were basing them on older information. What happened, of course, in the meantime was that there was a huge period of economic growth, one of the most rapid we had ever experienced in our history. Therefore, a huge amount of new resources came in. In addition to that, there was a decline in unemployment; therefore, the cost of unemployment went down dramatically.

But you put your finger on it, because there were groups that lost out—not so much lost out, but didn't make progress at the same level as others. One of them was lone parents. That was because there was an old attitude. When we introduced weekly allowances for lone parents, they were really designed to enable lone parents to stay at home to look after their children, like everybody else. But by the late 1990s, they had to be designed to help lone parents go to work, like everybody else, because female participation had increased substantially in the workforce and there were significant barriers to lone parents getting into employment and getting the support they needed.

So there's been a major shift in policy focus. Now the focus is on trying to facilitate lone parents' participation in employment. Thus it involves the provision of child care, and it involves the provision of education and training, because our surveys show that a significant proportion of lone parents have a level of education below the norm, which is a barrier in itself. And it involves making improvements in transport to work and trying to get more flexibility in hours, and whatever.

The process is obviously clarified, but the problem is there. We now have a lot more people in jobless households for reason of being lone parents or having disabilities and whatever than we have because they're unemployed. Many of these households have children, which adds to our relatively high levels of child poverty.

So it's all designed to try to tackle poverty across a whole range of policy areas, which I've just outlined.

[Kevin O'Kelly]

Chair, could I maybe follow on from what Gerry said?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Sure, but make it a very quick response because we're over our time. A quick response would be great.

[Kevin O'Kelly]

Okay, I'll be very quick, just to clarify one point.

We work with two measurements of poverty. At the European Union level we use a particular formula—60% of the median income, which we consider the “at risk of poverty” level. That's an income measurement. It's quite high in Ireland, because of what Gerry said: there's been a very steep increase in top-level incomes, whereas quite a lot of other people may have increased their incomes but not at the same rate.

But we also have a second measurement, which I think is much more important. That's what we call consistent poverty. That's measured, first of all, on the basis of the income poverty I just referred to, but also on the basis of a series of criteria as to whether or not people are able to have a hot meal every two days, or own a warm overcoat, or go out with friends once a month, because of their income. There are 11 of these criteria.

On that basis, the latest figures that we have for 2006 show an increase in child poverty and poverty among lone parents. These are obviously related. But we've also seen a decrease, for example, in poverty among older people, as I mentioned earlier, and also among immigrants, who may have come here after the accession of central and eastern European countries to the European Union in 2004. They seemed to be living in poverty in 2005, but in fact that level dropped quite substantially in 2006. So it's a mixed picture; we're seeing progress in some areas and difficulties in other areas.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Kevin.

We're now going to move on to Mr. Martin, from the NDP, for seven minutes.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you very much.

First I want to thank Gerry for all the work he's done to prepare for the possibility of a delegation from this committee going over there to meet with him and those we're meeting with today, and others, so that we can get a fuller understanding of the dynamic and the energy behind this anti-poverty campaign in Ireland that's obviously working very well.

As you know, I am quite disappointed that we're not going to be doing that. We'll deal with that at another time.

I myself may have a chance to go and perhaps meet with some of you next week anyway. We'll see how that evolves.

We came here this morning quite impressed, as I was before, with the efforts being made particularly in Ireland to combat poverty, as a commitment. You mentioned to others, as they asked you questions, some of the dynamic behind this. There were decisions made at the European Union level. There was a minister at one point who made a commitment to combat poverty. There was the building of a national consensus that got you to a place where you had public support. I believe the social partnership was an important element in all of that.

I know when I was over there in 2002, you came out with one of your five-year plans, called the “Programme for Prosperity and Fairness”, with which I was quite impressed. I know that's part of all of this too.

Is there anything we've missed, or I've missed, that is key or essential or fundamental to the program you're now administering and that is obviously having some significant success?

[Gerry Mangan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Martin.

We're also obviously disappointed that you and your colleagues weren't able to make it, but we can understand how difficulties arise, as we work with ministers and parliamentarians and whatever. We'll look forward to meeting you, hopefully, if you can visit us next week. Needless to say, we are very much available to you and your colleagues if we can be of any assistance in trying to explain what we've been doing.

I think you've in fact summarized very well how the process has evolved, and particularly, I suppose, it has happened on two levels. The governmental system has recognized the value of this, be it in our Department of Finance or be it wherever, that there is great merit in trying to get on top of the poverty challenge and addressing it in an effective way. I think that goes without saying. As well, I mentioned all the key interest groups, such as employers, trade unions, and so on.

I think employers are an interesting example, because it's true in Ireland and I think it's true generally that people see that poverty has a significant economic downside as well. That is illustrated very much in Ireland, where, when the economy did take off and we created a huge number of jobs, we ended up not having the workers to fill them, because a lot of people didn't have the education, didn't have the training, didn't have the supports they needed. The previous speaker mentioned lone parents, which was a key example of this.

Therefore, that led to high levels of immigration, which of course we have no difficulty with, but it did highlight maybe the extent to which a failure to address poverty adequately, on the one hand, can have an economic impact, and the historic nature of poverty. A lot of the problems people had at that stage were the result of, in a way, failures in the past to provide proper education, to provide proper supports, and so on. So when these people reached working age, they weren't in a position to avail themselves of the job opportunities that became available.

As the process has gone on, more and more it's becoming clear that tackling poverty has a strong economic dimension as well, or economic advantages. I think that's very much echoed by the OECD, of which, of course, Canada is a very distinguished member. In a recent meeting there of ministers of social affairs, the OECD Secretariat made a very strong statement in that regard when they said that not only does poverty have social justice implications, but it also has severe economic implications currently and into the future. I know that all the member states, all the countries represented there, had no difficulty in accepting that and endorsing it.

I hope that helps to answer some of the issues you raised.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you very much.

I have just one other question for this round. I understand now, more fully, the dynamic at the top level, the national level, and even the European Union's insistence that this happen, and the new charter that, hopefully, will be approved today by Ireland, but how do you get this down to the ground level, to actually work out in the communities? You have urban and rural considerations to bring into play here, and in Canada we have an interesting challenge in that we have a federal government, we have provincial governments, and then we have municipal governments, and the thing is to get the good thinking at the top to work its way down so that programs on the ground actually work.

You mentioned at one point the idea of community development as an approach to capturing some of the perhaps difficult to serve or consistent levels of poverty. Maybe you could talk to us for a few minutes on how you make this happen at the local level and maybe develop further this notion of community development.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Gerry, we're almost out of time here, so we'd like as quick a response as you can give. I know that's a big question.

[Gerry Mangan]

I'll ask Kevin or Bevin to respond.

[Bevin Cody]

I suppose that in terms of communities we would have a very strong belief that people experiencing poverty have a big role to play in working together to tackle poverty within their own communities, but they need support and resources to do that. Ireland has a widespread community development program with community development projects, and I think there are 292 community development projects around the country in which people are undertaking anti-poverty work at the community level. There's also a ministry responsible for community development.

At another level, there is a major program of work happening through the local authorities, with many of the services that people living in poverty need to access. I suppose that has created its own challenges insofar as policies were being developed at a national level but then needed to be translated and implemented and delivered at a local level. Combat Poverty has worked over the past seven years with local authorities to help them build their capacity to develop local anti-poverty strategies that translate the goals of the national strategies to a local level. That has had its challenges, but it's been supported by a number of structures at a national level. For example, there's a local government social inclusion steering group that operates at a national level and brings together a number of government departments, so that would be another issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thanks, Bevin.

We're now going to move to the Conservatives and the government.

Ms. Yelich, go ahead for seven minutes.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Thank you very much.

I'm going to share my time with Mr. Brown.

I just want to say that yesterday we met your ambassador, Declan Kelly, who co-hosted a reception here on the Hill as a book was being launched about Thomas D'Arcy McGee, titled Passion, Reason, and Politics,1825-1857. It was an interesting reception, and of course Declan Kelly represents your country very well.

I heard a couple of interesting comments. I'm not sure which speaker mentioned the will having come from a minister on the left of the spectrum, but when it comes to discussing poverty, I don't think there is any political right or left on this. We are all interested in tackling poverty because we will all benefit so much from the education and from all the things that come from a thriving economy.

I know that part of the reason you have been so successful is your economy. Does that change your strategy or the definition of “poverty” from when you started this strategy 10 years ago?

I also want to know, when you do sign the Lisbon agreement, what changes will that make to your strategy? Will you be setting a new direction? And picking up on what Mr. Martin said, about the levels of government here at home, how are you going to get it to the ground? What happens when you join the Lisbon agreement, if that passes? What changes will that make to your whole strategy? Will it change direction?

I don't want to take much time, because I do hope that Mr. Brown gets a question as well, but I also want to know what that market basket looked like. I heard you name a few things. Even if you could write them and submit them to the committee, it would be helpful.

Thanks.

Actually, I did have one more about your stakeholders. You said there were many stakeholders. We also want to have some of the stakeholders come.

How did they contribute positively to some of the changes in policies? We want contributions, not people saying this is what government has to give them. What did they come with as contributing factors to trying to lift people out of poverty? I'm talking about CEOs of companies, businesses, small businesses, and the trade unions you mentioned. Of course, we all know that volunteers are probably the largest asset to lifting people out of poverty, but what contribution did these stakeholders make besides having a thriving economy?

Thank you.

[Gerry Mangan]

Thank you very much.

Again, it's very interesting for us to hear about all the Canadian-Irish links there are. In my own case, I have three first cousins in Canada, one of whom has the same name as mine, so we have a lot of personal contacts there.

In terms of the commentary made, quite rightly, about the left-of-centre politician, I suppose it's just that the person who started it happened to be that. But the government of which he was a member, which was not really left of centre--it was more centre--fully supported it. Then it was maintained by the government that succeeded them--in fact, the minister went out of office before the plan came into effect.

I can say that there is, quite rightly, consensus right across the board politically in this whole area, and that is borne out of a concern for poverty and for trying to deal with it.

In terms of the other issues, I think rather than my hogging it, I will turn first of all to Tim, in terms of the nature of the poverty and how it's calculated and so on.

[Tim Callan]

I think the issue there is a general one and not specific to Ireland, but there are particular aspects that became very sharply focused in Ireland. It has to do with how the definition of poverty is adjusted for growth in income and increasing income over time. Those are general issues related to the low-income measure that's used or the relative income poverty measure that's used, which is called “at risk of poverty” by EU. Those are all automatically increased in line with a measure of average income or median income perhaps.

The consistent poverty measure is a newer and more recently developed measure. It's not designed to be something that is fixed for all time, although it is in the same tradition, in the sense that the consistent poverty measure is also trying to capture people being poor, meaning they are excluded from the ordinary life of society and so on. That's the same idea, but in planting that over what we've had in Ireland--a very rapid growth period--there are issues as to how well that's capturing it. For my part, as an analyst, it makes me cautious about attributing sole rights to one measure of poverty. I think these different measures are telling us different things. That doesn't mean we throw up our hands, but it means it is telling something about what's going on in a complex situation, and we need to interpret those carefully.

Obviously in this context I can't say a whole lot more, but we're willing to do so through email, if need be, as with any other matter.

[Kevin O'Kelly]

I'll take the other two points around the Lisbon treaty and the contribution of stakeholders. Maybe Bevin might like to also comment on that.

I wouldn't envisage any changes from the introduction of the Lisbon treaty. I think all the member states are now committed, as Gerry has said, to the implementation of anti-poverty strategies, or social inclusion strategies, as they're called at the European level.

I referred to it in my introductory remarks, because for the first time it will be included in the treaties of the European Union. Up until now it has been an aspiration. It would still remain a responsibility of the member states, but there's a greater coordination of approaches and a sharing of experiences across the 27 member states as to how to tackle poverty.

We would have delegations coming from other member states to see what's happening in Ireland; we would be in touch with fellow member states about what they're doing, and we can learn from their approaches. It's very much a sharing approach within the European Union. It will probably give an impetus and will help a lot to push the whole agenda on poverty and social exclusion along.

In regard to stakeholders, one of the interesting things about the commitment in Ireland of the trade unions and the employers is that we're lucky to have only one trade union centre and one employers' organization; we have single-peak organizations at the social partner level that work with the government, not just through the national partnership process but in a wide range of governmental agencies and organizations, so the social partners have a major input into the whole aspect of the development and the implementation of economic and social planning in Ireland.

The other thing I was going to mention was in regard to something Mr. Martin said around the national agreement of the PPF. In 2006 and 2007 we had quite an interesting development in Ireland, in that a lot of the programs we had in place converged at the same time and had to be renewed around the same time. We had the national anti-poverty strategy; it was finished in 2007. The PPF was finished in 2006, and the new Towards 2016, a 10-year agreement, came into force last year. Then there was the national development plan that came on stream at the same time, and we also had to prepare the reports for the European Union. A lot of these things came together, and there was an opportunity to integrate and interlink a lot of the strategies into one coherent national strategy, which again helped to focus on the national direction we want to go in.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

That's all the time we have. We'll get to you, Mr. Brown, in the next round.

We're going to start our second round of five minutes with Ms. Sgro, from the Liberal Party.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Thank you very much.

This has been very informative this morning. I appreciate your taking so much time with us.

As you know, several of our provinces are taking up the challenge as well to specifically put together an anti-poverty strategy. We're hoping that we're going to be able to work in coordination with our provinces as well as many of our cities and communities.

You mentioned lone-parent families. Many women today, along with doing the important job of raising children, also want to be participating actively in the workforce and preparing so that they don't end up as seniors in poverty. What programs specifically do you have, given the fact that you now recognize that a lot of women in Ireland want to be active participants in the workforce? What have you done when it comes to the issue of providing child care and the issue of seniors in poverty? Have you done anything specifically to deal with them?

My third question is on the issue of homelessness.

I'm throwing out three quick questions for you, just because time runs short and our colleagues still want to get some other questions in. So could you give me some fairly quick answers to three complex problems?

[Gerry Mangan]

Very quickly, then, in terms of lone parents, the main aim for lone parents is to reconcile their work and care for children. So we do find that, quite rightly, their priority will be the care of children, but they will want, at the same time, to develop a career. Of course, the capacity to develop their career will vary as the children get older, and they may be freer when the children become school-going.

So a key element is child care. That has been developed to a significant degree. We still have a long way to go. Many cultures have been doing it for many years and they've made a lot more progress, but I suppose the need for it is accepted. The direction in which we're going is clear. It takes time to build the capacity, and that's what's being tackled at the moment.

The majority of our lone parents are in employment. A minority, a large minority, are not in employment. In their case, it's largely a lack of education, a lack of training, but even a lack of access to employment from where they live—transportation, a whole range of areas like that. So we have an activation program that will be bringing lone parents into what is a normal unemployment-type level of support. They'll be treated as people available for work. Their needs will be assessed, the barriers will be removed insofar as that is possible, and the necessary incentives, training and so on, will be provided. That policy is part of the plan, and it's to be developed in the coming years. It's one of the top priorities, if not the top priority, because for a lot of lone parents, the fact is, as I mentioned earlier, it does contribute to child poverty as well.

In terms of the older seniors, again, there has been a strong commitment to increase pensions substantially. There are substantial increases to try to bring people out of the “at risk of poverty” category that we mentioned earlier, to bring people above that level. There may also be a need to target people who are living alone. A high proportion of people who are experiencing poverty are living alone, because they haven't the benefit of sharing household expenses with somebody with another pension or another income. And then we have a whole community support system continually being developed in terms of home help, respite care, support with housing needs, heating needs, and fuel. We have free electricity, free travel, free television licences, a whole range of household allowances that help people meet the major costs they have. I think that would be the second group.

As regards the homeless, we're nearly at a stage where most of the people who used to be on the streets have, to a large extent, been provided with shelter. But then you need to move on from that situation where people are living in what we call in Ireland “bed and breakfasts”, or temporary accommodation, and so on, to get them housed into more regular accommodation. That's achieved by, first of all, making appropriate housing available, but also by providing rent allowances that meet a high proportion of the rent people have to pay.

[Bevin Cody]

Can I just add something in relation to child care?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Sure, Bevin, very quickly, if you could. Thanks.

[Bevin Cody]

I suppose there has been a focus in Ireland on child care as a workforce activation measure as opposed to a more holistic view of child care in terms of what is in the best interests of the child. A recent development here has been the establishment of an office for the Minister for Children, with responsibility for looking at that, and it's brought together different policy areas--including health, education, and some elements of justice--to look at that issue.