Fintan O'Toole: The nation’s children will go on paying the cost of the bailout for some time - Opinion: The gap in health between the best-off and worst-off children has doubled in the three years after the bank guarantee

It may not have been open to governments since 2008 not to inflict pain – but it was open to them not to inflict pain on those who could least bear it. Those who can least bear it are children in families at risk of poverty. Even in the first three years of the crisis – when budgets were actually fairer than they have been under the present Government – very little effort was made to protect them. On the contrary, the effects of the recession have been concentrated disproportionately among those who were already struggling. In the Growing Up in Ireland study, just 14 per cent of mothers in the top tranche of earners said the recession has had a “very significant” effect on them. The equivalent for mothers in the bottom tranche was 34 per cent. Hence the silent scandal that we can see the effects of this inequality even in very young kids. The starkest reality is that the health of the children in families where there is no work declined very substantially after the bank bailout. In September 2008, 79 per cent of these kids were classed as “very healthy”. By 2011, just 67 per were very healthy.

Mein Blog befasst sich in einem umfassenden Sinn mit dem Verhältnis von Wissen, Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft. Ein besonderes Augenmerk richte ich dabei auf die Aktivitäten des Medien- und Dienstleistungskonzern Bertelsmann und der Bertelsmann Stiftung.