Richard Boyd Barrett
Question:1. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach for an update on the child poverty and well-being unit. [4031/24]
View answerTuesday, 13 February 2024
Questions (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
Paul Murphy
Question:2. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach for an update on the child poverty and well-being unit. [4034/24]
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Peadar Tóibín
Question:3. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Taoiseach to report on the work of the child poverty and well-being programme in his Department. [3976/24]
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Mick Barry
Question:4. Deputy Mick Barry asked the Taoiseach for an update on the child poverty and well-being unit. [4125/24]
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Paul McAuliffe
Question:5. Deputy Paul McAuliffe asked the Taoiseach for an update on the work of the child poverty and well-being unit of his Department. [5223/24]
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Jennifer Murnane O'Connor
Question:6. Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor asked the Taoiseach for an update on the child poverty and well-being unit. [5274/24]
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Cian O'Callaghan
Question:7. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Taoiseach for an update on the child poverty and well-being unit. [5295/24]
View answerOral answers (7 contributions)
I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 7, inclusive, together.
The work of the child poverty and well-being programme office is to prioritise action across government in areas that will have the greatest effect for children and families experiencing poverty. From Poverty to Potential: A Programme Plan for Child Well-being 2023-2025 was published last year and is the initial programme plan for the child poverty and well-being programme office in the Department. The programme builds on six focus areas identified by Government which have the potential to bring about significant change for families and children.
The role of the Department of the Taoiseach is to co-ordinate and focus Government action. To facilitate this, the office has established a cross-government network on child poverty and well-being. The network has met twice to date, with a further meeting scheduled for quarter 1 of 2024. The programme also envisages a national child poverty and well-being summit in 2024. This will be a pivotal moment to take stock of progress and shape the agenda for future action on child poverty.
As well as driving implementation of commitments on the six focus areas, the office will also undertake strategic initiatives aimed at enhancing the efficiency and efficacy of cross-government responses. The first of these was a commitment to assisting children and their families, with a particular focus on those who are experiencing poverty, in budget 2024. The programme office applied a cross-government approach that culminated in the development of the report, Breaking the Cycle: New Measures in Budget 2024 to Reduce Child Poverty and Promote Well-being, which was published on 14 November. The report captures new and increased budget spending by 12 Government Departments and reveals how the new budget focus is accelerating and deepening our collective ambition for children.
Child poverty and child homelessness are completely unacceptable. We have 190,000 children at risk of poverty in this country. One of the most damning facts is that child homelessness has gone through the roof and we now have 4,105 children and 2,000 families living in emergency accommodation. Child homelessness has gone up from October 2021, when there were 2,300 children in emergency accommodation, to over 4,100 now. It is shameful. The trauma, stigma and mental health impact on children are utterly unacceptable.
What I want to know is what the Government is going to do about it. In every case of child homelessness that I come across, there does not seem to be a policy to stop children and their families from going into homelessness. When they are in homelessness, unless they are at the top of the housing list, they are told to find a HAP tenancy. However, the rents are so far ahead of the HAP thresholds that they have no chance of finding anywhere, so they are trapped in homelessness. In some cases, if the parents, or one of the parents, have an income that is over the threshold, they cannot even get HAP and they are totally trapped in homeless accommodation. Yet, the Government will not do anything to raise the thresholds, control the rents or increase the amount of social and affordable housing that we are getting in private developments. What is the Government going to do to get children out of the homelessness trap?
There are more than 300 children aged four or under in the Churchfield area on the northside of Cork city. Last August, a very long-standing and much-loved childcare and community centre, Before 5, closed suddenly. All other childcare providers in this area have waiting lists. The urgent hope is that a new childcare facility will open at the old location this September. However, for that to happen, approximately €366,000 worth of works need to be done and for them to be done in time, work will need to commence before May. The new management team at Northside Community Enterprises has written to five Ministers - the three Cork Ministers, Deputies Martin, McGrath and Coveney, and Deputies O'Gorman and Harris - in a bid to unlock funding. They were unsuccessful in accessing funding late last year and they are trying to unlock it. Will the Taoiseach communicate with these Ministers and tell them it is his view that this issue needs to be treated as a matter of the utmost priority?
My view is that the child poverty unit and the unit dealing with the roll-out of the north-east inner city model cover much of the same work. I welcome the Cabinet’s decision today to establish a task force for Ballymun which will be chaired by John Costello, formerly of the Dublin GAA county board. I thank the Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, and the Tánaiste, Deputy Martin, for their support in delivering that. It will make a difference in our area. I call on them to ensure that senior civil servants will be present and will engage with the task force, as we have been promised. We want to ensure that issues that are unique to our area are addressed, like the provision of early school leaving solutions, the recruitment of senior social workers, open drug dealing blackspots and the designing out of places of antisocial behaviour. These are all issues that I know the Taoiseach wants to solve. I ask that decision-makers from the Civil Service, the national agencies and An Garda Síochána will be part of that task force.
Again, I thank the Taoiseach for his work and for the allocation of the nearly €2 million that has been made available to the Department of housing and similar funding for Dublin City Council. It is a fantastic step forward today. I again ask the Taoiseach to continue to be available to the community of Ballymun. In his constituency and in mine, I know there will be other communities looking on and saying that they would like to have an area-based intervention in their area. It is a positive and I would ask us to continue to roll it out.
Child poverty is a huge concern for the Government and I know the Taoiseach is committed to addressing it. I always go back to Carlow and Kilkenny as I know so much about the issues there. A few years ago, Fr. Dunphy, I and other members set up what would technically be called a soup kitchen but which we call St. Clare’s Hospitality Kitchen, through which we give food to families and children and give out food parcels. However, we do not get a grant and we cannot get funding from the Government. That needs to be addressed.
At the moment, volunteers are running the service. We are always looking for funding. As there are so many families coming to St. Clare's Hospitality Kitchen, I ask that a funding stream be provided.
A related issue is that while I welcome all the DEIS schools this year and the amount allocated in that regard last year, there is confusion regarding DEIS status, as I have always said. In my area of Carlow, Tullow and the surrounds, there is a boys' school that is in DEIS 1 and a girls' school that is in DEIS 2. Those in the boys' school get breakfast while those in the girls' school do not. The latter school does not qualify for other supports. These issues need to be addressed. They are good schools and a significant amount of work has gone into the scheme.
Last weekend, I met with couples I know well who went to work abroad. Many of them went to Canada, Dubai or other areas eight or nine years ago when there were issues with engineering and so on. Many of them have now returned home with children. They cannot get a place in a crèche because there is a two-year wait for places. They cannot get a doctor or a dentist or the other services they need. I ask that this issue be considered. It needs to be addressed.
I add my voice to that of Deputy Murnane O'Connor. I have come across a similar scenario relating to boys' and girls' schools in Ardee. One of the schools got DEIS status but the other did not, in spite of the fact that they deal with the same demographics. These anomalies need to be considered. It is about trying to get resources to the people who require them.
This is not the first time I have raised the issue of early interventions. I am thinking about specific cases. We know that many families and communities could do with early interventions that work with all services, including those involved in education, the Garda, Tusla and whoever else, to get a better result. In some cases, however, there are very chaotic circumstances and the Garda, Tusla, the county council or whoever else does not have the tools required to deal with issues where children are in danger. I understand that, at times, Tusla has to attempt to keep family units together but I have seen chaotic scenarios where there are issues with drug addiction, criminality or other factors I will not address now. There is a need to put the resources together. In some cases, the county council gets blamed by neighbours who are impacted by this chaos. We need to provide the resources that are required.
Deputy Boyd Barrett raised the issue of child and family homelessness. Assisting individuals and families facing homelessness is a major focus for the Government and increasing the supply of housing, particularly social housing, is critical in responding to homelessness. We are now seeing record levels of investment being provided through Housing for All. In 2024, more than €5 billion is being provided for the provision of housing and we anticipate more social housing will be provided this year than in any year since the 1970s. Budget 2024 also allocated €242 million specifically for homeless services, including prevention. It will help with provision of emergency accommodation for those who need it, as well as increased prevention activity. Local authorities and their service delivery providers will work closely with all households in emergency accommodation to help them secure an exit to a tenancy. Local authorities have been sanctioned to acquire 1,500 social homes, mainly focused on acquiring properties where a social housing tenant has received a notice of termination and is at risk of homelessness. For private tenants at risk of homelessness who are not in receipt of social housing and do not qualify for it, the cost-rental tenant in situ scheme has been introduced. The national homelessness action committee, chaired by the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, was established in quarter 4 of 2021. The overarching objective of the committee is to ensure a renewed emphasis is brought to collaborating across government to implement actions in Housing for All, along with bringing better coherence and co-ordination of homelessness-related services in delivering policy measures and actions to reduce homelessness. In terms of the income limits for social housing and cost rental, we keep them under review. We have raised them and I have no doubt we will raise them again to take into account rising housing costs, as well as inflation and rising incomes.
Deputy Barry raised an issue relating to a particular childcare service in Cork city. I do not have information to hand on that but I will make inquiries with the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman.
Deputy McAuliffe referred to the fact that the Cabinet today approved the establishment of the area intervention task force for the Ballymun area. I am delighted that John Costello, formerly of the Dublin county board, has agreed to take that on. It is a really good choice and I am delighted he has agreed to take on the role. I was in touch with him about it today. A dedicated capital budget is being provided to co-fund the task force by central and local government. I agree with the Deputy. I expect public servants and public bodies, whether that is the council, An Garda Síochána, Tusla or others, to engage fully with this body. It has worked well in Drogheda and the north-east inner city. It requires people to come to the table in a meaningful way. They cannot just show up at the meetings but, rather, must show up and then act on what happens at the meetings. We will monitor that closely and make sure it happens in Ballymun. I recognise the Deputy in particular for raising this issue and advocating for the area consistently in the Chamber for the past four years. I am glad this task force is now up and running. I hope it will demonstrate good results on the ground. We are keen to have an enterprise focus to it as well. It is an area of great social deprivation and relatively high unemployment, yet it is surrounded by an area in which there is a huge amount of employment and jobs available. It is important that we have an enterprise focus to this too.
Deputy Murnane O'Connor referred to funding for food banks. I think the Department of Social Protection and the fund for European aid to the most deprived, FEAD, which is an EU programme, provides funding for that. I will certainly check that. There are different models, however. Crosscare used to provide a food bank in my area of Blanchardstown but it has gone to a very different model. I met the organisation before Christmas and I was really impressed. It has moved away from the model where people queue up for or come in to receive food or food parcels to a model where it delivers the parcels to the house. That is destigmatising. It also sits down to work individually with each household and that has enabled it to find out in many cases that people have entitlements they have not been claiming or, in some cases, all they needed was help with a particular bill or issue. Once that is done, they are able to go back to buying their groceries and other shopping in the shops, just as we all do. It is important that we have models that enable people to avoid becoming dependent on charity provision. That is a very good model to be considered in other areas too. I echo the Deputy's comments on the need to continue to improve our public services to cope with the rising needs of our society and population.
I did not catch everything Deputy Ó Murchú said, but I trust the Garda to make the right decisions on such matters and trust social workers and Tusla to make the right decisions with regard to child protection. Often, they are the only ones who really know what is going on within a family situation and whether taking a child away from a family is the right thing to do. That is always a very big decision to make.