British administration at Stormont drafts Anti-Poverty Strategy: no new policies/no budget/no clear priorities or action plan
In a statement on June 30, 2025 a spokesperson for Cumann Tomás Ó hAirt, Sinn Féin Poblachtach, Ard Mhacha Thuaidh said: “While the great and the good keep an eye on their personal political agendas, mealy-mouthed words without action will hardly fill the bellies of hungry children.
“Last week, the End Child Poverty organisation revealed that child poverty levels in the Occupied Six Counties continue to rise. The Commissioner for Children and Young People office has reported that one in every four children in the Occupied Six Counties is living in a family which struggles to provide for basic needs: providing a warm, adequate home, nutritious food, appropriate clothing and payment for childcare costs. There are children whose parents often have to get into debt to pay to make ends meet and do not have the means to save money for unexpected costs or family outings.
“Dr Ciara Fitzpatrick is a Researcher and Lecturer at Ulster University School of Law and the Social Justice Institute. Her primary area of interest is social security law and social justice. She states, ‘I can’t sum it up any better than Peter Bryson. It’s utterly unacceptable in its current form and won’t make a material difference to the lives of our families in the deepest poverty. It’s an insult.’
“Peter Bryson from Save the Children added that it has no clear priorities, budget, action plan, milestones, or accountability for its delivery. It recycles existing commitments, with no real clear link drawn to a deeply flawed description of the current drivers of poverty. There’s no evidence that lessons have been learnt from past initiatives, no serious assessment of the drivers of poverty, and no engagement with the lived experience of children, families and communities. We have to ask – how was this agreed?
“Sinn Féin Poblachtach continues to highlight that there is plenty of monies for war, but none for the wellbeing of children. As Irish Republicans we must lose sight of our goals: to work towards liberating the Irish people and establishing a democratic system, based on justice and equal rights: build Éire Nua: a New Ireland. In a new Ireland, Irish people will begin to experience real power in their own communities, with those communities serving as the foundation for a modern, pluralist Irish republic.
“After more than 100 years of misrule and oppression north and south of Britain’s Border the partition of Ireland has been an abject failure. The British alternative continues to bring frequent political instability in the Occupied Six Counties. In fact, their flagship project Stormont has been in a state of collapse for 41.5% of its meagre existence.
“It is time for radical change. We need a programme that embraces all the people of Ireland; it should provide for a system in which all creeds and traditions can be represented and all citizens can exercise real power, without any group infringing on the rights of others. The alternative to the forging of a New Ireland is to endure the present system, perhaps in the blind hope that our politicians and their elitist EU friends will somehow magically find ways to transform our present debilitated, impoverished and undemocratic society into a nation that is strong, prosperous and democratic. But what makes that a wholly unrealistic expectation is that these politicians, the system they sponsor, and the policies they sustain and operate, are themselves at the core of the problem that confronts us. We know from bitter experience that Ireland has no real future under the direction of such politicians.”
PRO
Cumann Tomás Ó hAirt
Sinn Féin Poblachtach
Ard Mhacha Thuaidh
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