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Food Poverty

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 18 December 2018

Tuesday, 18 December 2018

Questions (612)

Willie O'Dea

Question:

612. Deputy Willie O'Dea asked the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the percentage of persons here considered to be in food poverty; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52720/18]

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Written answers

The CSO publishes two items from the Survey of Income and Living Conditions relating specifically to the consumption of food. The first refers to the percentage of the population who were “unable to afford a meal with meat, chicken or fish every second day”. In 2017, the latest year for which data is available and which was released by the CSO earlier this week, this was 1.7%, down from 4.2% in 2013 when the effects of the recession were most felt. The second refers to the percentage of the population who were “unable to afford a roast once a week”. In 2017, this was 5.3%, a decrease from the 2013 figure of 8.1%.

The primary role of the social welfare income supports provided through my Department is to sustain an adequate standard of living and to prevent poverty, including food poverty. The Irish social welfare system is relatively successful in this role. The 2017 Survey on Income and Living Conditions data, released by the CSO this week, show that social transfers (excluding pensions) reduced the at-risk-of-poverty rate from 32.3 per cent to 15.7 per cent, representing a poverty reduction effect of 51 per cent. Ireland continues to be one the best performing EU member states in this regard, and this reflects the Government commitment to protect core weekly welfare rates during the recession.

Difficulty in meeting regular ongoing needs may result from a family encountering exceptional once-off expenditures. In this regard, under the Supplementary Welfare Allowance scheme, my Department may make a single exceptional needs payment (ENP) to help meet essential, once-off expenditure which a person could not reasonably be expected to meet out of their weekly income.

My Department also administers the Fund for European Aid for the Most Deprived (FEAD) which provides food and basic consumer products to people most at risk. In 2017, through a network of charitable partnership organisations, the Department distributed almost 1,000 tonnes of food to over 96,000 people in communities throughout the country, either in the form of food parcels or as meals prepared by charitable organisations. The Department's FEAD budget for 2018 is €8m, of which €4.5m is allocated to ongoing food distribution with the remainder allocated to the distribution of material assistance in the areas of homelessness, school kits and new migrants.

In addition, the School Meals programme provides funding for a breakfast for all children and lunch for up to 90% of children in DEIS schools for the entire school year from September to June. Breakfasts are also now available in some school outside DEIS. Funding towards school meals is being provided in over 1,580 schools and other organisations, supporting over 248,000 children at a cost of some €54 million in 2018. I was also pleased to announce, as part of the Budget 2019 package, the introduction of a pilot scheme to provide hot school meals. The pilot, which will run from September 2019, will fund up to 36 schools to provide hot school means to up to 7,200 children.

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