Ireland: who is protecting the poor?

The leaders of the four largest Churches in Northern Ireland have travelled together to London to express their “grave concern” over the impact of proposed welfare reforms on the most vulnerable in Northern Ireland. The leaders of the Churches (Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist) had a private meeting with the Minister in charge of the Welfare Reform, Lord David Freud. Then they travelled to the Palace of Westminster where they met other Members of Parliament and the House of Lords involved in debating the Welfare Reform Bill as it passes through its final stages in the Houses of Parliament. The Archbishop of Armagh, Alan Harper, of the Church of Ireland, said: “That all four leaders of the largest Churches in Ireland have set aside time before Christmas to travel together to London to make this approach to Lord Freud and his colleagues is a sign of just how concerned we are. Successive studies have shown that Northern Ireland will suffer more than any other region of the UK from the reforms to social welfare being debated in Westminster today. As Christian leaders we feel we have a responsibility to speak up for the most vulnerable in our society and for those in our congregations, especially children and their families who will be pushed even further into poverty by some of these reforms”. The upcoming reforms have already been described as the most radical shake-up of the UK social security system. Under the proposed reform bill, there will be a wide array of measures including restrictions to Housing Benefit and amendments to child benefit provisions and family allowances. “Northern Ireland – Reverend Ivan Patterson, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, said – is already lagging behind other parts of the UK in terms of economic growth. Because we have some of the highest levels of unemployment, poverty and disability in the UK these reforms will set us back even further”. So Christian leaders asked Lord Freud “what efforts are being made to protect the poorest”. The President of the Methodist Church in Ireland, Reverend Ian Henderson, expressed concern especially for children and families. About 40,000 children in Northern Ireland live in severe childhood poverty. Many of them “could be further disadvantaged by these reforms. This is simply unacceptable”. Card. Seán Brady, Primate of the Catholic Church in Ireland, said: “Today we are taking a united stand as Church leaders to say ‘give us a shared future which is a better future, not one that pushes Northern Ireland further back as the most impoverished region of the UK!’. We are at a critical stage in Northern Ireland. We need investment”, not “measures that leave tens of thousands of our young people without hope” for a better future. KEK: appeal to EU Member State leaders on the economic crisisThe European leaders, gathered in Brussels, are asked by the Christian Churches of Europe to take “effective measures that are equal to the problem and put people’s needs at the centre of the solution”. In a release, the Conference of European Churches, which brings together 125 churches of the Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant traditions, express their concerns to the European leaders: “Nowadays, the European Union is facing the most significant, existential crisis since its birth. If the financial and economic crisis cannot be effectively solved by a coordinated action of the member states of the European Union, then the Union itself is on the line”. “It is clearer than ever – the release reads – that the states cannot keep on living to the detriment of others or of the future generations, producing debt, and it is also equally clear that the reduction of the current debt cannot be achieved just through austerity measures, which hit those people who are already vulnerable in our societies – the migrants’ communities, the young and the elderly, the underpaid and the unemployed. The voice of the people who are protesting in the streets in so many European countries needs to be listened to. The European social model, which had been widely appreciated in the past, must prove to be viable, especially at times of crisis. In finding solutions to the present crisis, the European political leaders will have to balance values, such as accountability and solidarity, on which European integration is based. While indebted countries have to be accountable, in a crisis situation solidarity must prevail. In the mid-term, no sustainable solution can be found without more coherent economic governance, a closer political oversight over financial markets and a move towards a fully fledged fiscal Union”.