One In Eight Children Living In Consistent Child Poverty - Report

The number of children living in child poverty has almost doubled during the recession, according to a new survey.

The report from think-tank TASC showed that one in eight children are now living in consistent poverty.

Author of 'Cherishing All Equally 2016', Dr Rory Hearne said: "This equates to 138,000 children, or one in eight, living in consistent poverty. This can be contrasted to the adult consistent poverty rate of 7.9% in 2014 and 2.1% for those aged 65 and over. Of all households with children, lone parents have the highest poverty and deprivation rates – 18.3% of all children in Ireland live in lone parent households.

"At nine months, the level of household income a child is born into has no correlation with their inherent cognitive potential. But by the age of three, those in higher income families are performing better with a difference of at least 10 points in the average scores on the Naming Vocabulary tests.

"At age nine years, a 1% increase in household income is predicted to increase reading score by 5.16% and maths scores by 5.1%. Again at age nine, children in the bottom income deciles are disproportionately more affected by learning disabilities – the incidence of speech and language difficulties amongst children aged nine in the bottom three deciles are double the incidence for children in the top three deciles.

"At just nine years of age there is a strong negative correlation between children's self-image and their social class background with children from more disadvantaged backgrounds more anxious, less happy and reported poorer behaviour. By age 13, only 36% of children from the bottom income decile expect to achieve a third-level education in contrast to 65% of children from the top income decile."

(CD)