Amid suggestions that the Irish government intends to amalgamate or abolish the Combat Poverty Agency (CPA) EAPN Ireland believes the CPA continues to play a crucial role in the fight against poverty.
With unemployment levels at their highest in ten years, and the largest monthly increase ever in unemployment in July, ‘the Agency has a critical role to play in generating innovative solutions to eradicating poverty, without which the government will not be able to meet its own target to eliminate consistent poverty by 2016’, warned Anna Visser, Director of EAPN Ireland.
EAPN Ireland has a long history of working with the CPA and values the contribution it has made as well as its potential for the future.
“Community and voluntary sector organisations are key partners of the CPA and it is disappointing that in conducting the review of the Agency the government has not sought the views of people who experience poverty and the organizations that work with them”, added EAPN Ireland.