Mary Coughlan
Question:39 Miss Coughlan asked the Minister for Social Welfare the precise future role he envisages for the Combat Poverty Agency in the overall tackling of social deprivation. [13969/95]
Written Answers. - Combat Poverty Agency.
I regard the Combat Poverty Agency as a strategic national resource in the fight against poverty and social exclusion. The agency, as the Deputy is no doubt aware, has an important role in advising the Government on policies that impact on poverty, in promoting research into the causes and effects of poverty, in raising public awareness of poverty issues and in supporting pilot projects to tackle poverty. There have been many significant changes in the years since the agency was set up. These changes include: current development in relation to the articulation and implementation by the Government of a national anti-poverty strategy in Ireland; developments at EU level, including the outcomes of the Poverty 3 Programme; the White Paper on Social Policy and increases in Structural Funds spending; the growing place of community development in the programmes of statutory agencies as a means of tackling social exclusion; and the development of partnerships between statutory agencies, the traditional social partners and the community in tackling local development issues, particularly in the context of the Programme for Local Urban and Rural Development.
In the light of these changes, I have recently commissioned a review of the Combat Poverty Agency. The review will identify and describe the full range of the agency's activities to date and priority objectives for the agency in the light of the changed environment in which it now operates. My intention is that the report will be completed by the end of the year and used in determining the agency's priorities for its next three year strategic plan for the period 1996 to 1998. The report will be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas as soon as it is finalised.