WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8: Government Senator LaVerne Furbert this morning criticised campaigner Sheelagh Cooper saying she was exaggerating the extent of poverty in Bermuda.

Last week, speaking before MPs on a joint select committee looking into crime on the Island, Ms Cooper said poverty was a problem of epidemic proportions.

This morning in the Senate, Sen Furbert said:?“When I was young, people had to go outdoors to go to the bathroom. I don’t see that kind of poverty in 2010.”

She also criticised the school breakfast programme, run in part by the Coalition for the Protection of Children, suggesting that more effort should be placed on teaching parents to provide their own children with a nutritious breakfast.

“I believe that adage that it’s better to teach a man to fish, rather than give a man a fish,” she said.

Opposition Senator Suzann Holshouser responded: “Many households simply cannot afford the meals that we heard of. The reason the Coalition established that programme was because there was a need.”

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