FOUR TESTS FOR BUDGET 2025

GOVERNMENT’S FINAL BUDGET MUST LEAVE POSITIVE LEGACY ON POVERTY

On the eve of Budget 2025, the Community Platform, a network of 31 national community and voluntary organisations, has published its annual Four Tests for Budget 2025. The Platform calls on the Government to leave a positive legacy on addressing poverty, social exclusion and inequality, and to deliver sustainable changes to build a stronger, fairer, and more resilient society, in which everyone can live with dignity.

The Community Platform, a network of 31 national organisations working to address poverty, social exclusion and inequality, has published Four Tests which it will use to assess Budget 2025. The Four Tests are:

Test 1: Will Budget 2025 redistribute income towards the poorest 20%?
Test 2: Will Budget 2025 strengthen access to quality employment?
Test 3: Will Budget 2025 restore and strengthen public services that are of particular importance to people on low income?
Test 4: Will the impact of Budget 2025 be assessed to ensure that all provisions reduce poverty and inequality?

The Community Platform’s Four Tests for Budget 2025 draws on its members’ submissions to Budget 2025 to outline detailed measures and proposals the Government should implement in order to achieve each of these Four Tests.

Tim Hanley, speaking on behalf of the Community Platform, said: “Budget 2025 will be the last budget of the current Government, and its final chance to leave a positive legacy for people experiencing poverty, social exclusion and inequality. Despite suggestions that the worst of the cost-of-living crisis is behind us, many people continue to see no real improvements, and they risk falling even further behind. Poverty rates remain disproportionately high across all measures for many of the most marginalised groups, who were already in poverty and struggling to make ends meet before the cost-of-living crisis.”

Mr Hanley continued: “The Government must use Budget 2025 to deliver sustainable changes that contribute to building a stronger, fairer, and more equal society, in which everyone can live with dignity. Now is the time to take substantive and meaningful steps towards addressing the long-term inequalities in our society, the eradication of poverty, the provision of universal, accessible and affordable public services and decent jobs, and the creation of inclusive, resilient, sustainable and empowered communities.”

Read the Four Tests for Budget 2025

Report: ‘What Would it Take to Eliminate Consistent Poverty by 2030?’

COMMUNITY PLATFORM CALLS ON ALL POLITICAL PARTIES TO COMMIT TO ELIMINATING POVERTY BY 2030

The Community Platform, an alliance of 31 national networks and organisations in the community and voluntary sector, has today called on all political parties to commit to the elimination of consistent poverty, as it launched its new report, ‘What Would it Take to Eliminate Consistent Poverty by 2030?’.

Drawing on the collective expertise of the Platform’s members – 31 leading organisations in the community and voluntary sector working to address poverty, social exclusion and inequality – the report provides key insights into the root causes and structural reasons for consistent poverty, and the groups most commonly affected. Crucially, it identifies key solutions and provides recommendations to eliminate consistent poverty.

“This is a critical moment to make the eradication of poverty a political priority. Budget 2025 will be the final budget of the current Government, and a General Election is just around the corner. The Community Platform calls for all Budget measures to be assessed to ensure they reduce poverty, and for all political parties to commit to the elimination of consistent poverty as a key priority ahead of the General Election. The report shows it is possible to eliminate consistent poverty by 2030, but it will need a high level of political commitment,” said report author, Dr Nat O’Connor (Age Action/UCD School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice).

“Ireland has a national target to reduce ‘consistent poverty’ to 2% or less by 2025. The Community Platform believes this official target does not go far enough. Why not aim for zero, as was the stated national policy in 2002 and 2007? Seeking to eliminate consistent poverty by 2030 would say that we want Ireland to be a country that does not leave anyone behind. We need a national anti-poverty strategy based on the goal of eliminating consistent poverty, one that acknowledges and addresses the structural reasons some people are more likely to be in poverty,” said Dr O’Connor.

Dr O’Connor continued: “The range of measures need to achieve the goal of eliminating consistent poverty by 2030 will need to address income adequacy for everyone, access to a decent work for those who can work, and routes out of poverty for those unable to secure an adequate income from work or who are unable to work. Greater investment is needed to ensure access to quality, affordable and sustainable public services for all, irrespective of income level. Tackling and lowering wealth inequality will be crucial, including through progressive taxation.”

Download the full report, ‘What Would it Take to Eliminate Consistent Poverty by 2030?’