Steven Matthews
Question:59. Deputy Steven Matthews asked the Minister for Social Protection the steps that her Department is taking to tackle the issue of food poverty; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [50429/22]
View answerThursday, 13 October 2022
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Written answers
The Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025 is a whole of Government strategy that aims to reduce consistent poverty to 2 per cent or less by 2025 and make Ireland one of the most socially inclusive countries in the EU. The Roadmap was published in January 2020 and contains seven high level goals, delivered by 66 unique commitments.
Commitment 61 has a specific focus on food poverty: develop a comprehensive programme of work to further explore the drivers of food poverty and to identify mitigating actions . In order to deliver on this commitment, I established a Food Poverty Working Group in April 2021. The group comprises officials from a range of government departments along with representatives from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Crosscare and the Children’s Rights Alliance. The membership of the group reflects the complex nature of food poverty and food insecurity.
The first key piece of work that the Working Group undertook was a mapping exercise to identify the various programmes across Government that address food poverty and provide supports in this area. A report on the results of this exercise was published in July of this year, Food poverty: Government programmes, schemes and supports , and is available on my Department's website. It found that a number of departments are engaged in programmes, schemes and supports that are connected, either directly or indirectly, to the issue of food poverty. Expenditure in 2021 on schemes that directly addressed food poverty was €89 million.
The second piece of work that the Working Group has undertaken is the development of a research proposal examining the prevalence and drivers of food poverty. The research will identify the drivers of food poverty and examine the extent of activities addressing food poverty at a local level in two case study areas, identifying gaps and overlaps in service provision. Research has commenced, and the final report is expected in December 2022. It is my intention that the findings from this research will further inform the work of the Group and contribute to the production of recommendations that will assist individuals and families experiencing food poverty in Ireland.
In this context, I am pleased to have secured funding to the amount of €400,000 as part of Budget 2023 to develop and implement a pilot scheme to support people experiencing food poverty. A procurement process will be run in relation to the pilot programme next year.
In addition, within the Department, we have the School Meals programme, which includes the Hot School Meals programme introduced in 2019. Overall funding for this has increased from €38.8 million in 2015 to €68.1million in 2022, reflecting the importance of the programme in providing regular, nutritious food to children enabling them to take full advantage of the education provided to them.
The Department also administers the FEAD programme (now European Social Fund Plus) in partnership with FoodCloud and the 156 community groups that distribute food packs and meals in local communities. This programme is co-funded by the EU, supporting EU countries in the provision of material/food assistance to those who are most deprived. During the period 2016-2020, over 774,000 individuals in Ireland were assisted by the programme, with over 990,000 food packs and more than 4.9 million meals distributed.
Question No. 60 answered orally.