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Nearly a quarter of all children in Northern Ireland are living in poverty, shock statistics have revealed.

There are 25 wards in Northern Ireland where at least half of children are living in low income families, up from 19 in 2013.

The highest rate is in the Limavady area where two-thirds of children are living in poverty.

The Coolessan ward saw 65.7% of children living in low income families at August 31, 2014, new figures show, with an income that is below 60% of the average. This was up from 58.5% in 2013.

These include the East ward in Strabane and Collin Glen in Lisburn at 63%, and Creggan South in Derry at 59.1%.

Princetown in North Down had the lowest rate of children living in low income families in Northern Ireland, at 3% in 2014, down from 5.3% in 2013, which was the biggest drop in Northern Ireland.

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The poverty rate in Malone in Belfast has more than doubled in a year, up from 1.7% of children living in low income families in 2013 to 3.6% in 2014. The rate has also doubled in Stormont, up from 2.4% to 4.9%.

There were 111 wards out of 582 in Northern Ireland that saw the proportion of children living in low income families stay the same or drop between 2013 and 2014.

Overall 23.3% of children in Northern Ireland were living in low income families in 2014, up from 21.4% in 2013.

In 2014, the overall proportion of children in the UK living in low-income families increased from 18.2 per cent in 2013 to 20.0 per cent.

This equates to 250,000 more children in low-income families in 2014 compared with 2013, an increase from 2.50 million in 2013 to 2.75 million in 2014.

The figures suggest the poorest families’ incomes are not keeping up with rises elsewhere.

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The HMRC report said this increase was driven by an increase of around 400,000 children in families earning less than 60% of the median income.

However, it said this does not necessarily imply that the incomes of these families have declined. The number of children in families in receipt of out-of-work benefits fell by 162,000 between 2013 and 2014.

The low-income threshold, which is 60 per cent of the median income, rose from £218 in 2013, to £253 in 2014 3 (in nominal terms). The majority of the increase of 400,000 children is can be explained by this change in the threshold. The increase in the low-income threshold itself was due to increases in income from employment for families around 60% of the median line.

The proportion of children in low-income families across local authorities ranged from 2.8 per cent to 41.9 per cent.

Tower Hamlets had the highest proportion of children in low income families in the UK, with 41.9 per cent of children living in low-income families in 2014.

In 2014, increases were seen across all regions, with the West Midlands having the largest increase of 2.5 percentage points.