Vol. 490 No. 3
19 Mr. Rabbitte asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs if he will make a statement on the progress to date in implementing the national anti-poverty strategy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10045/98]
This Government has pledged itself to achieving a society based on social inclusion, and to addressing the structural causes of poverty as it affects a significant minority in our society. This is reflected in the Government programme An Action Programme for the Millennium. A key element to achieving this is the national anti-poverty strategy which has been in place for just over one year.
The initial focus of the strategy has been on putting in place appropriate institutional and administrative structures to ensure that the implementation of the NAPS was supplemented by efficient and complementary mechanisms. These included the Cabinet subcommittee on social inclusion and drugs, including local development, chaired by the Taoiseach, which now meets on a regular monthly basis; the continuation of the NAPS interdepartmental policy committee, comprised of senior officers who have responsibility for ensuring that the NAPS provisions relevant to their Departments are implemented; the NAPS unit based in my Department which co-ordinates the implementation of the strategy; the appointment of NAPS liaison officers in relevant Government Departments to fulfil a communication and co-ordination role.
The primary focus of the first year of the NAPS was to have the concept of social inclusion firmly embedded across the Civil Service. I am satisfied that this has been achieved due, to a great extent, to the existence of these structures which facilitate co-operation in relation to social inclusion issues at all levels. As a result, Departments are responding to the challenge to develop new and more open ways of developing their policies.
The Cabinet subcommittee reviews the strategies which are in place to deal with poverty and exclusion and provides strong leadership for the strategy. Much progress has been made in this first year in moving towards the targets set out in the NAPS statement. Indeed, it is now envisaged that many of these targets will be reached sooner than anticipated.
Some examples of positive, concrete initiatives which are making inroads on the NAPS targets in its five key thematic areas are a multi-annual employment plan has been put in place aimed at reducing unemployment and preventing young people from drifting into unemployment; a variety of new measures have been introduced to tackle early school leaving; social welfare payment rates have been increased so that 94 per cent of all social welfare claimants will be over the rate recommended by the Commission on Social Welfare; rural poverty is being addressed in the forthcoming White Paper on Rural Development; a new integrated services project has been introduced to co-ordinate services in a number of particularly disadvantaged urban areas, and the national drugs strategy has been progressed.
At departmental level, NAPS baseline documents and 1998 workplans have been prepared by the relevant Departments. These documents will provide a broad indication of where current programmes and initiatives are impacting on poverty, and will facilitate identification of potential cross-cutting actions which could prevent duplication and provide more focused action to promote social inclusion.
