‘Poverty is there, it’s just hidden’
SOUTH West Regional President of St Vincent De Paul (SVP) Christy Lynch said poverty remains a major problem across the county.
The long-time SVP advocate called on Kerry General Election candidates to stop paying lip-service to issues affecting people and take proper action.
“We’re finding that poverty is every bit as much a problem today as it was in the past, it’s just more hidden and discrete,” Christy said.
Christy has worked with SVP for over 47 years and has seen his fair share of elections in that time. He labelled the Government’s assertion that there’s been a pick up in the economy and standard of living as relating mostly to cities rather than rural areas.
“This pick up is mostly in the cities. The people living on the outskirts and in rural areas are not feeling it. We have people coming to us in SVP who have never come to us before; we’re seeing a different kind of poverty now. We delivered over 900 hampers at Christmas, and that’s outside of the other things such as fuel and heating,” he said.
Christy maintains that politicians after this election will need to listen to the people and stop assuming that what they say, as opposed to what they do, is enough. He said ‘action’ rather than verbal promises is what will make a fundamental difference to people’s lives.
“There is very little genuine generosity in what they (politicians) do. In my opinion they’re out of touch with the people and with reality. And I say that about all of them; I have no political allegiance whatsoever. They need to apply some common sense. But in the meantime it’s organisations like SVP that are picking up the slack.”
Christy also branded Government plans to increase the pension age and its record on housing as ‘ ludicrous’. The amount of personal debt experienced by young people in the past decade has also contributed to the problem.
“How can someone in a labouring job be asked to work until they’re 68? It should be a personal decision to work after 65, not an enforced decision. As regards housing, the Government need to build more housing, and plenty of them,” he said.
“There are too many people in hostels and emergency accommodation through no fault of their own. The Government should give more money to the likes of SVP, and we’ll pick up the slack.”