Understanding of Poverty in Ireland Today

What is your understanding of indigence in Ireland today? What would you identify as possible resp ersts? My understanding of exiguity in Ireland today is that it is multifaceted and c everyplaces a range of social telephone numbers such as lack of education, social exclusion and marginalisation. In the main body of this extend I provide discuss my understanding of poverty and put before sever al responses to these issues. I will examine how concourse with corporeal disabilities and mental health problems, one p arnt families, the slothful and sh bes of the travelling alliance are more(prenominal) susceptible to poverty.Firstly Id like to localize the two main types of poverty in Ireland today which are as fol get-gos. Consistent poverty and secondly Relative poverty/at venture of poverty. People in consistent poverty have a conclave of relative income poverty with relative deprivation. This means having an income be small-scale gear 60% of the average and withal e xperiencing enforced deprivation. This means being on a low income and non being equal to(p) to aff ord basic necessities such as immature clothes, not having the money to buy food such as means or fish, not being qualified to heat your home, or having to go into debt to pay ordinary household bills.Approximately 5% of great deal in Ireland insure into this category. People in Relative poverty. This means having an income that is below 60% of the median value income (the median is the mid- smudge on the scale of incomes in Ireland). In 2010, that was an income of below 207. 57 a week for an adult. Whilst muckle who fall into this category may be able to pay their rent they may not be able to cover the costs of utility bills or perhaps not be able to afford to go out for a meal once a month or to participate socially.Approximately 15% of bulk in Ireland fall into this category. According to the Combat scantiness Agency the people virtually at put on the line from poverty in the following order are lone stirs, the unemployed, people with disabilities or mental health problems, children and the elderly. The effects of poverty in Ireland include social exclusion from normal activities leading to estrangement preventing them from developing their skills and talents , lack of access to mainstream financial services which in whatever cases will lead to people using illegal mone y lenders who burster igher interest rates which in unfreeze puts them in more debt, unyielding term effects on their mental health leading in most cases to economic crisis due to their lack of a sense of self-importance worth or belonging and physical health problems due to drab nutrition, inability to gain well paid jobs, and in the case of children, blustery at develop which in turn may cause depression or suicide or that they may drop out of school primal. Lone parents are 3 times more likely to be in poverty than the rest of fiat as a precede of expensive child c are and lower levels of education which leads in turn to low paid work.They find it extremely sticky to access adequate childcare which in turn means they are unable to further their education. as well the financial cost of transition from social welfare to employment inhibits them. They would support their medical card which is a big issue for any parent who because cannot afford private healthcare on a low pursue. They are thus socially excluded. People with physical disabilities have no management to improve the quality of their lives. They may not be able to work at all and must exist on a small sum given to them by the social welfare department. They likewise require home booster just to do menial tasks.In more an(prenominal) cases they rely on a parent or other family member for this support which in like manner puts the carer in a position where they can not work enough hours if any at all to earn a wage that would be considered adequate. This in turn leads to the carer becoming at try of falling into poverty. These people are among the roughly vulnerable people in society and are stuck in a poverty trap. They are excluded socially not only because of their physical limitations tho withal because they cannot afford to do many things other people take for grante d. I personally call back that cutting the payments they receive is a cruel and inhumane thing to do.If we do not stand up for the weakest people in our society then what does that say about us. People with mental health problems are in any case stuck in a similar situation to people with physical disabilities. They bear on a meagre social welfare payment with no chance of employment or improving the quality of their lives. Again these people are stuck in a poverty trap and are among the most vulnerable people in society. These people are also socially excluded from many activities other people take for granted which in turn can lead to exacerbation of their mental health proble ms.People who are unemployed live on social welfare payments. Unlike people with disabilities or mental health problems they do have the ability to work and would more than prefer to be working where possible. There are some organization funded initiatives to serve well people in this category to up skill but unfortunately there are still not enough jobs to go around. People in this category may have a owe and/or children to support accordingly they are at greater risk of falling into poverty. Members of the travelling community suffer from poverty in a few ways.Firstly they are stigmatized by the rest of society and find it difficult to secure employment because of bias and also because of the fact that they are mournful from place to place. Many of the children in this community leave school early thus leaving them with a lack of education and furthering their risk of poverty. They also suffer from a higher rate of mortality than members of the settled community. The childre n are often bullied in school because they are seen as different and therefore find it harder to settle into life at school.My responses to the above mentioned issues would be as follows Tackling any problem involves finding the root of the problem and working from that point forwards therefore I believe that early intervention would be a key strategy to alleviate some of these problems. The children today will become the parents of tomorrow so I think that targeting children in schools with programmes intentional to raise awareness of the social issues involved in poverty and to try and educate them to think in a more sociological way would benefit not only them as individuals but society as a whole.Putting in place more effective support networks with more political science funding for people who are struggling may help to stop people moving from relative poverty to consistent poverty. For people in consistent poverty I think that they need to be helped by directly giving them a s much aid as we can give and more importantly try to give them opportunities to help themselves. Nobody wants to have to beg , most would prefer to be g iven an opportunity to make their situation better. Raising awareness in the frequent community would help also.Realising that there are many complicated reasons why people end up in poverty and that they are not just a bunch of lazy drop outs would help us to empatise with them more. Also I believe that government policy should be canvass in a manner that makes sure that it does not contribute to the cosmea of poverty. Conclusion I have discussed in the above paragraphs my understanding of poverty in Ireland today. In the previous paragraphs I have talked about some of the different groups of people who are affected by poverty and also the effects it has upon them.I have also outlined a few responses to these problems. general my understanding of poverty leads me to conclude that poverty has been around and will move on to be an issue into the future despite the good work that government and many other agencies do as it is a complex issue with no easy solutions. Furthermore in my understanding it is the way our society is organised under the capitalist framework that also contributes to this problem. We are living(a) in a society today where the gap between the robust and poor is increasing. This is in part caused by the mechanisms of the Capitalist economy.Capitalism tends to push people towards poverty through seeking to pay the lowest possible wage to an employee in return for a higher profit margin. They will also close a factory and relocate it to a different rustic where the labour rates are even l ower as it is more profitable to do so rather than keep the workers in Ireland employed. In a capitalist system property rights take priority over human needs. For example there are many empty houses in the so called ghost estates in Ireland and also many homeless people but the people who own these buildings have no intention of permit the homeless make use of the buildings.This is perfectly legal in our society. Poverty also benefits capitalism because it means that there will be many who in desperation will settle for any job no matter how little the wage. Therefore poverty stems from the way that capitalism works. I believe that we need to look at changing the system of government to share more equally the benefits of our labours. We must ask ourselves is this acceptable in our modern society with the high moral standards we expect of each other.