A project of the European Anti Poverty Network Ireland with the Northern Irish Anti Poverty Network (NIAPN); the Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed (INOU); the Community Workers Cooperative (CWC); the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice (VPSJ), and Cork City Council Social Inclusion Unit.

Ireland is changing: economic recession, record breaking increases in unemployment, active exclusion of the voice of people who experience poverty, and in the south of Ireland, the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, all point to a society in crisis.  But we are not alone in facing this crisis.  Serious questions about the nature of European societies are emerging and we must find answers.  These questions motivated NIAPN and European Anti Poverty Network (Ireland) plus four partner organisations to put together a project to address Ireland’s place in social Europe, and to interrogate Europe’s role in the fight against social exclusion and injustice.  The two year project is built around the 2010 European Year against Poverty and Exclusion and is part funded by the European Commission’s programme to promote debates on social inclusion in support of the reinforcement of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) on Social Protection and Social Inclusion.

The OMC is one of the key tools aimed at enhancing policies to promote social inclusion across Europe.    The European Commission itself recognises that since the OMC was put in place ‘no comparable reduction in rates of poverty has been achieved’, neither has this instrument made ‘Europeans feel that social justice and equality of opportunities are back on the EU agenda and being actively promoted’ (European Commission, Open Call for Proposals VP/2008/015, p. 5.). 

The EU can and should play a stronger more positive role in ending poverty in Europe.  This project will seek to articulate, on an all Ireland basis, how that role can be elaborated.  The core objectives of the project are: (1) Enhance understanding of experiences of poverty in Ireland and promote a national debate on its implications for policy; (2) Raise awareness of the added value of a European approach to ending poverty and social exclusion during and in the run up to 2010; (3) Promote innovative strategies for how the EU, through the OMC can add more value to the fight against poverty in Ireland.

The project will adopt a thematic approach, structured in the context of the current debate on active inclusion: (1) income; (2) services; and (3) labour market activation.  This thematic approach will be underpinned by supporting activities intended to create the conditions for a substantial debate at national level on poverty and social inclusion and the EU dimension. These conditions will be achieved through strategies to (a) support people who experience poverty and the groups that work with them; (b) foster cooperation and dialogue with politicians and officials; and (c) raise public awareness of poverty and its policy implications.

Europe might not be perfect, but as the current economic crisis demonstrates, for now it is the only answer available to increasingly complex global realities, we must make sure that that answer works for everyone, and in particular people who experience poverty and exclusion.

Links

Community Workers Co-operative (CWC): www.cwc.ie
Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed (INOU): www.inou.ie
Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice (VPSJ): www.vpsj.ie
Cork City Council Social Inclusion Unit: www.corkcity.ie/ourservices/communityenterprise/socialinclusionunit/