VIEW issue 4 2012:VIEW issue 4 2012 29/04/2012 16:54 Page 8


VIEW, Issue four, 2012


Website: viewdigital.org


Page 8


‘Poverty horror to haunt thousands of children’


In the last issue of VIEW, we led on our front page and inside on the story about the Welfare Reform Bill in Northern Ireland. The Children’s Commissioner Patricia Lewsley-Mooney has now warned of a rise in poverty unless changes are made to the Bill. Una Murphy reports on the latest developments in an ongoing debate


Patricia Lewsley-Mooney: Commissioner for Children and Young People


‘I fear that many thousands of children and young people will suffer increased hardship’


Nelson McCausland: Minister for Social Development


‘I do not accept that evidence exists to support the Commissioner’s claims that the Northern Ireland Executive is failing to protect children’


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children in Northern Ireland would lose out on benefits as a result of the changes. Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children


New research has found that families of 6,500


tormont politicians are set to debate the Welfare Reform Bill amid widespread alarm about the impact of the legislation in North- ern Ireland.


Welfare reports


Welfare Reform - Assessing the Impact on Children Written by Goretti Horgan and Marina Monteith from the University of Ulster – http://bit.ly/IYLnn6


and Young People (NICCY), Patricia Lewsley- Mooney, which commissioned the research, has warned of “poverty horror”. “There is a real need to improve the current benefits and social security system but I fear that many thousands of children and young people will suffer increased hardship and adverse life out- comes.


“Despite the claim that the Executive has little choice but to implement the same changes as in other parts of the UK, this is not necessarily the case,” Ms Lewsley-Mooney said. Research on the impact of welfare reform on


Welfare Reform - The Parity Question Written by Barry Fitzpatrick and Profes- sor Noreen Burrows, explores ‘Parity’ in relation to Welfare and wider social policy – http://bit.ly/KgGZ0Z


breaking parity with the rest of the UK on other issues and could do so again when considering the changes to social security provision in Northern Ireland.


children’s rights and the implications of breaking parity from GB – commissioned by NICCY – found that Northern Ireland would be adversely affected. The research found that Northern Ireland is the UK region with the highest percentage of households with children (34%), compared to a UK average of 28%, and the highest proportion of larger families, those with four or more children.


NICCY said politicians here had considered


The chair of the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Social Development Committee, Alex Maskey, has said that every member of the committee was committed to scrutinising the Welfare Reform Bill clause by clause. The Social Development Minister Nelson Mc- Causland said: “I do not accept that evidence exists to support the Commissioner’s claims that the Northern Ireland Executive is failing to protect children, or that it will fail to meet its targets to


tackle child poverty. These statements will cause unnecessary concern, and indeed, many of the rec- ommendations within the report focus on reforms to the Child Benefit and Tax Credits system, for which the Northern Ireland Executive has no leg- islative responsibility.” The research, commissioned by the NICCY


‘Welfare Reform –Assessing The Impact On Chil- dren’, by University of Ulster academics Goretti Horgan and Marina Monteith, is an assessment of the impact of the proposed changes on children's rights and best interests. ‘Welfare Reform –The Parity Question’ by Barry Fitzpatrick and Professor Noreen Burrows high- lighted the pressure on the Executive to maintain parity in relation to welfare reform in Britain. The report identified areas where flexibility can be used when adapting reforms within Northern Ireland. Meanwhile, there has been a stark warning from ARC NI, an organisation supporting people with learning disabilities, that the voluntary and commu- nity sector cannot fill the gap in services caused to government cutbacks. Siobhan Bogues, the Northern Ireland director,


said: “I think there has been an increasing tendency for the voluntary community sector to be seen as being able to plug the gap. We’ve seen, bit by bit, a reduction in monies coming into the sector and voluntary organisations have tried to plug the gap, but that isn’t sustainable into the future.”


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