Tag Archives: Poverty

Economic Violence Against Women and Girls also needs to be addressed

Posted on by
Reply

Nicola Grant, Workers Party constituency representative in Newry & Armagh represented the Party at yesterday’s all-party discussions at Stormont as part of the development of a strategy to end violence against women and girls.

Nicola also attended the conference later in the afternoon addressed by leading author and academic Dr Jackson Katz.

The Workers Party made a formal submission to the strategy consultation process earlier in the year in which it argued for a broader understanding of violence to include the impact which poverty has, particularly on women.

Speaking after her meeting at Stormont, Nicola said,

“Today’s meeting and conference represented a welcome and very necessary further step along the road to developing and adopting a robust approach to the problems of violence against women and girls.

“It was important the Workers Party were at the top table to voice the concerns of working-class women and girls and the lasting effects which economic violence can have on them”

“Of course, we must take every initiative and every opportunity to counter physical and psychological assaults on women and girls, but we must never lose sight of the violent effects which low pay, zero hours contracts, benefit cuts, inaccessible and unaffordable child care and a lack of affordable public housing can have on individuals and families”, she said.

“That is a message that must be heard and it is must be as central an issue in the final strategy as all other approaches”, Nicola concluded.

Workers Party stands candidates in six constituencies

Posted on by
Reply

The Workers Party will be standing candidates in six constituencies in next month’s Assembly elections

The election campaign is being fought in the face of the worst cost of living crisis in decades, and all that that means for working class people and their families.

That crisis has been made worse, and contributed to, by the dysfunctional Stormont Executive. A Stormont Executive that has failed, failed and is set to fail again.

With families, the vulnerable and the elderly particularly affected, the main political parties have, yet again, put their own interests ahead of the community and working people.

Only the Workers Party candidates will be presenting a radical socialist alternative to the electorate

On Friday the 6th of May – the day after polling day – we will all be confronted by a number of issues that will fundamentally affect all our lives, the lives of our families our children our neighbours and our friends:

And they won’t be: A Border Poll, the Protocol, Flags, Culture Wars or Community Identity

The issues facing the vast majority of people and particularly working class families will be the Cost of Living, the Health Service, Housing, Education, Low Pay and the Environment

If golf clubs can receive cash subsidies and businesses be supported to the tune of over £22 billion then working-class people, families, single parents, the elderly and the vulnerable can also be provided for.

This election gives the opportunity to re-write the political script in favour of working-class people and their needs.

The Workers Party, the party for working class people, provides that platform

The Party’s Candidates

North Belfast Lily Kerr

South Belfast Patrick Lynn

East Belfast Eoin MacNeill

West Belfast Patrick Crossan

Mid Ulster Hugh Scullion

Newry & Armagh Nicola Grant

Highlighting Poverty and Social Deprivation  

Posted on by
Reply
     
The Workers Party has held a protest outside the gates of Stormont to highlight the appalling levels of poverty, social deprivation and the effects the rising cost of living is having on families and children.  

Party spokesperson and veteran trade unionist Lily Kerr said,
” We hope this will send a strong message to all those who think that flags, border polls and sectarian headcounts will pay the bills or put food on the table”.  

“Politics and the media are dominated daily by petty disputes over ‘who-said-what’, what flag to fly, what title to give someone and who’s going to be the First Minister”, she said  

“Meanwhile, in the real world, families are going hungry, children are going without heat and workers, as well as those people on benefits, are forced to use food banks to try and make ends meet”. 

Northern Ireland has higher levels of multiple deprivation than the rest of the UK with over a third of the population living on or below the breadline.

Low pay and inadequate benefits lead to poverty and of heat and food lead to mental and physical ill health

Computers and internet access are unaffordable for many families.
People are struggling with rent and mortgage payments
Some people are losing their homes.25% of children live in poverty
Fuel poverty is a reality for thousands of local families                                                                                                   
“Poverty is not inevitable”, Lily said. “It is a direct result of an economic system that values profit more than people”. “Only a socialist society will consign poverty, deprivation and despair to history, but we must make immediate demands and see immediate changes to improve people’s lives, health and futures” she said  

Our immediate response to the current crisis is a call for:  
better jobs with better wages
a more flexible working environment
higher pay for low-income families
strengthen and simplify the benefits system
invest in public services
an immediate universal fuel allowance
more public affordable housing   .

Poverty levels a damning indictment

Posted on by
Reply
More than 60% of children living in poverty come from homes where at least one parent is working

Around 14,000 local families are facing crippling debt, fuel and food poverty and mounting rent arrears unless the measures to mitigate against the impact of the Universal Credit system are extended immediately. Families will also endure further financial hardship if the £20 uplift introduced at the start of the Covid pandemic is not made permanent.

Despite a commitment in the New Decade New Approach agreement to extend the mitigation measures, the necessary legislation has yet to be passed by the Assembly.

As the deadline for ending the £20 per week uplift to Universal Credit payments approaches has the Assembly done nothing more that acknowledge that it will have a devastating impact on families here.

The Minister for the Communities accepts that the end of the uplift “will cause great distress and financial hardship” , but, unbelievably, the only action she has taken is to write a letter to the Westminster government asking it not to do it.

It is estimated that the ending of the uplift payment will push a further 11,000 children into poverty. That would be on top of the well over 20% of children currently living in what is identified as ‘absolute poverty’.

There can be no doubt that in addition to the mental health and emotional well-being pressures that will bring, it would also result in an increased reliance on food banks and an increasing number of families struggling to heat homes and afford winter clothing.

As the major parties here ramp up tensions and division ahead of next year’s Assembly elections the appalling levels of poverty in this community are a damning indictment of their prioritisation of tribal politics over the lives, well being and futures of the thousands of families who are treated no better than election fodder.

While Universal Credit is a consciously cruel and unworkable system that has to be scrapped, in the immediate term the Assembly must implement an extension of the mitigation measures already agreed and make permanent the £20 uplift introduced last year.

However, it is clear that only in a socialist society will child poverty, deprivation and despair be consigned to history.