Encouraging data means nothing when you’re struggling – John McKeon

Hailing from Dublin’s inner city, he also interestingly gave personal insights into his own challenging upbringing in a poor neighbourhood where many of his classmates end up behind bars or dead. His talk followed a tearful account of her own upbringing surrounded by poverty and drugs by author Katriona O’Sullivan. He noted that while he also grew up in poverty, his family escaped the added pain of drug addiction.

“I was born and raised in north inner city Dublin. I went to school where there were 54 lads in the class; 51 of them ended up in Mountjoy and I was one of them who didn’t. The reason I didn’t end up in Mountjoy is because my parents weren’t drug addicts and my mother in particular placed an awful lot of store in education.

“And although she was involved, she had a profound disability (and) I and my sister spent an awful lot of time caring for her.

“So I know what disability is. I know what child caring is – she could do one thing: She made sure we did our homework and she helped us do that homework and she told us, get educated and get out.

“So I know, I have a background, I have an understanding, as do an awful lot of other senior civil servants if you speak to them. Don’t assume that we don’t know what it takes to be a carer, or what it means to be a person with a disability,” he said.

He asked attendees to be open-minded: “Sometimes when people talk, they talk in an ‘us’ and ‘them’ scenario. It’s not us and them, it’s us together,” he said.

Stories embolden us

He said social inclusion “is good for the economy” and is also about “respect”: “It’s about parity of esteem, it’s about aspiration, opportunity. It’s about love, security, connection. The data doesn’t tell us that, but your stories tell us that.

“And that’s what emboldens us, and what energizes us, and what encourages us to go and make the case on your behalf for the changes that need to be made,” he said. Looking at national statistics, while he could show that measures to tackle poverty had been partly successful, he acknowledged that if you were poor today you could not feel the benefit of a statistical curve upwards.

“The fact that consistent poverty has reduced from nearly 10% to 5% in six years is of little comfort to the person who’s in that 5%. If you’re one of that 5%, your experience of consistent poverty is 100%.

“The averages are great, but they hide the individual stories. And we’ve got to be aware of that,” he said.

Nonetheless, deprivation rates between 2014 and 2024 have “more or less halved (and) the risk of poverty has more or less halved,” he said.

New efforts to reach the hardest-to-reach people were promised. Giving examples of ideas that came through the SIF – such as free school dinners – he spoke of the continuing usefulness of the forum and the impact that community workers have.

He noted that as poverty rates come down, making further progress required fresh approaches. He said we should be “100% focused” on tackling discrimination. Also, we should view expenditure on social inclusion as an investment, not a cost.

The forum was held to bring the state and civil society together and to hear what community groups see and what they recommend to reduce poverty.

Forum disappointment

Voices from the floor indicated a loss of patience with the government. Things are worse now than they were in 2007, said one speaker pointing to the number of babies being born into homelessness in Dublin in 2025.

“I was one of the unfortunate people who were so excited when you sent out that huge survey on the cost of disabilities. I helped over 180 people to fill it in, me and other volunteers,” she recalled.

“And then we were told, we’re actually going to support people with disabilities, to give them an opportunity to participate, to contribute and actually have a real existence.

“We were given that little bit of hope, and then nothing happened, nothing changed. There is no real vision for what you’re going to do, because the poverty trap is entirely created by the state, and this is part of the problem.

“We’ve got the highest number of babies born into homelessness just down the road.

“I don’t see the change, I don’t see the vision. I look forward to having a report, but I’ve been coming to these since 2007, and it’s worse now than it was in 2007. I’m probably one of many who’s really disappointed,” they said.

Islander’s message on week of tragedy

In the same week that an islander lost his life on a pier on Clare Island, Megan O’Malley travelled from the island to Dublin to deliver a call at the forum for better infrastructure to make life safer and less isolated for all living on Ireland’s offshore islands.

She said, “During winter we put our lives at risk every day trying to get out to get food, water, baby’s nappies, new clothes, school items, everything.

“We know all too well what it’s like to be isolated and not be able to get the services in in time when they’re needed in an emergency,” she added.

End discrimination in state services

Kathleen O’Connor works as a primary healthcare co-ordinator in Co. Wicklow and is appalled at the lack of progress. She said, “Travellers are living in substandard accommodations, ten years after the Carrickmines tragedy that took the lives of ten of our people from our community.”

She highlighted poor pay and conditions in the sector and a lack of pension support for some staff.

Traveller primary healthcare workers and their communities face daily racism and discrimination, including “a lot of barriers” against Travellers seeking to access services.

“It’s very hard as Travellers to go into a service even and then to go in and being discriminated against which makes it even harder. So we do try to work with that as well but that’s what we’re facing every day,” she said.

Two things changed my life

Guest speaker, author and lecturer Katrina O’Sullivan, said, “Poverty and inequality robs you of connection. And that is something that we all deserve to have.”

“You do not expect someone like me to end up here. If you go back 30 years, I’m 16, 17, I am living in a homeless hostel in Birmingham. I have a baby. He’s nearly one. I am completely welfare dependent. I left school a year before with no qualifications at age 15. Terrified and alone, no family support,” she recalled.

“I grew up in a home where both of my parents were heroin addicts. I woke up every single day hungry and not just for food. I hungered for a hug, for someone to teach me how to regulate myself, for someone to tell me that I was worth more.”

She went on to describe support she received from, among others, a community worker called Joe and it made a difference.

“He guided me towards the two really important things that changed my life, therapy and education,” she said, adding that good policies and support services can help people to rise above poverty.

“They offered me free education, rent assistance, free child care and therapy. All of them were connected. I didn’t have to trade anything off.”

The theme of this year’s SIF was ‘Reflecting on the Past and Informing the Future of the Roadmap for Social Inclusion.’