Vol. 525 No. 4
4 Mr. Broughan asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs the steps being taken by his Department to ensure that each Government Department undertakes a rigorous poverty proofing exercise in advance of the budget with regard to each of the measures to be proposed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25272/01]
Following agreement among the social partners in July 1998 on a pilot poverty proofing system to assess all significant policy proposals for their potential impact on the poor, the Government adopted this process in official Cabinet procedures. Given its multi-dimensional nature, poverty cannot be solely the concern of one Department. Each Government Department has a responsibility and an obligation to ensure that its policy proposals are poverty proofed.
To assist in the implementation of poverty proofing, the national anti-poverty strategy unit based in my Department, produced a set of guidelines on poverty proofing and worked examples which were distributed to all Government Departments last year. The unit has also met liaison officers in all Government Departments and discussed poverty proofing with them in order to assist with any difficulties.
All memoranda for Government and key policy initiatives upon which significant policy decisions have to be made are required to be poverty proofed and this has been the case since late 1998. In relation to my Department's preparations for the budget, key principles of the national anti-poverty strategy are built into the development of the social welfare budget package from the start and influence the development throughout. Documents outlining the proofing of the social welfare budget package will be available to anyone who expresses an interest from budget day, as they were last year.
The Minister for Finance has already assured this House that the income tax provisions in the forthcoming budget will be poverty proofed, having regard to the official guidelines on the matter. Spending Departments are responsible for poverty proofing expenditure measures.
As provided for in the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness, the poverty proofing arrangements are currently being reviewed by the National Economic and Social Council. I expect that the outcome of the review will enhance the current process and help address any difficulties that may constrain its effective implementation. Following the review my Department will consider further measures for improving the process.
The Labour Party considers that in the past year and particularly in the lead up to Budget 2000, there was no poverty proofing of proposals. Will the Minister agree with that? That is evident from freedom of information disclosures. The Government did not do anything in this regard in terms of its famous development in July 1998 or for the past year and a half. I want to help the Minister who must be under extreme pressure in Cabinet. Would he be prepared to give a press conference on 6 December and systematically go through the 15 Departments, including his own and especially Finance, and indicate to the Members and to the public how the Government has poverty proofed Budget 2001?
I will not need to do that because I can assure the Deputy that this year's budget will be poverty proofed and will have such a good effect in alleviating poverty that it will not be necessary to do that.
Was last year's budget poverty proofed?
The Deputy will have to wait and see. The Government is the first Government—
Will the Government look after the rich again?
Last year's budget was not poverty proofed.
The Minister is in possession.
—that brought in a system of poverty proofing, which is the reason I am asked as Minister to go to many European countries to explain how we are proceeding with our poverty proofing procedures.
This is all fantasy.
I can assure the Deputy that he can wait until 6 December and I will hold a press conference to tell the general public about all the great measures that will be introduced in the area of social welfare.
(Carlow-Kilkenny): It is the way he tells them.
This is the second time in the past 18 months the Minister has come close to misleading the House. There was no poverty proofing of Budget 2000. It appears that Budget 2001 will not be poverty proofed. All we have heard is that training will be provided for civil servants, models will be introduced etc. The Minister is misleading the House in this regard. He launched two reports recently. He and I were present on the day the social inclusion strategy was launched. That made clear, as did the report on lone parents, that we still have a situation where almost one-fifth of Irish children are living in poverty, even the latest figures show that despite our Celtic tiger economy, one-fifth of Irish children are living in poverty and one-third of single parents are experiencing poverty. Children are twice as likely to experience poverty as adults. The Minister has responsibility for this area. Will the Government poverty proof Budget 2001? It did not poverty proof Budget 2000. The Minister should not mislead us.
I will repeat what I said in my reply regarding my Department's preparations for the budget. Key principles of the national anti-poverty strategy are built into the development of the social welfare budget package from the start and influence the development throughout. Documents outlining the proofing of the social welfare budget package will be available to anyone who expresses an interest from budget day, as they were last year. The figures the Deputy quoted on poverty, including child poverty, all relate to the time when his Government was in office.
What is the use?
All the figures that have been released by the ESRI for 1998, which was the first year of the Government's term of office, have been extremely positive, particularly regarding consistent poverty and consistent child poverty.
Apart from the Minister, no Member present has been a Minister. He has consistently thrown out that mantra for three and a half years. Of the many submissions we received, we got a good one from the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed. It is also of the view that there was no poverty proofing of Budget 2000. Will the Government poverty proof Budget 2001? Will the Minister hold a press conference on budget day? I, and I am sure Deputies, Fitzgerald, McGrath, Coveney and Browne, would be delighted to attend it and sit beside the Minister, if necessary, and listen as he goes through each Department's expenditure and tells us how they were poverty proofed. He will not do that because it has not been done.
Lest the message goes out that the social welfare budgetary package was not poverty proofed last year, it was and this year's package will also be poverty proofed. I will not give a press conference regarding its poverty proofing, but I will give one regarding the changes in the next budget. I can assure the Deputy each and every one of those changes will have a dramatic effect in alleviating poverty.
The Minister is up in the trees again.
