Willie O'Dea
Ceist:4. Deputy Willie O'Dea asked the Minister for Social Protection the progress that has been made, if any, in completing and publishing a strategy to tackle for poverty. [26008/13]
Amharc ar fhreagraWednesday, 29 May 2013
Ceisteanna (4)
Freagraí ó Béal (7 píosaí cainte)
The Government and I, as Minister for Social Protection, are committed to reducing and eliminating poverty, as set out in the programme for Government. We are determined to ensure the most vulnerable are enabled to benefit from economic recovery through activation programmes and services and, ultimately, being able to return to work. The existing strategy for addressing poverty is the National Action Plan for Social Inclusion 2007-2016, or NAP inclusion for short. A key element of this plan is the setting of a national social target for poverty reduction. This target, which was revised by the Government following a comprehensive review in 2012, is to reduce consistent poverty to 4% by 2016 and 2% or less by 2020. In this regard, the Department recently published the social inclusion monitor which reports on progress towards achieving the national social target for poverty reduction.
Also of importance was that the data highlighted that social transfers continued to perform strongly in 2011 in reducing the at risk of poverty rate by 24 percentage points from 40% to 16%. This equates to a poverty reduction effect of Irish social welfare payment levels of 60%. While the figure decreased slightly on the 2010 figure of 62%, it is far in excess of the European Union norm of 35%. In terms of the key targets, in 2011 the consistent poverty rate was 6.9% which, according to the Central Statistics Office, "is not a statistically significant change on the 2010 figure of 6.3 per cent".
One of my priorities is to target policies and resources at the groups which carry the greatest burden and risk of poverty, namely, jobless households and children. This is reflected in the commitment to set sub-targets for these groups.
I made the Department aware of a typographical error in the question, which was intended to specifically refer to food poverty, an issue on which I propose to focus for a moment. Food poverty has been defined by safefood Ireland as not being able to afford a meat or vegetarian equivalent meal every other day, being unable to afford a weekly roast dinner or vegetarian equivalent at least once a week or missing a meal in the previous fortnight owing to money reasons. According to the most recent figures available to safefood, one in ten people was experiencing food poverty in 2010. This is a stark statistic in a so-called wealthy country.
The Labour Party, of which the Minister is a member, published a policy document on food poverty in 2009-10 in which it estimated that one in five people was experiencing food poverty. All of us are aware that the position has deteriorated markedly since 2010, as shown by the quadrupling of the number of calls made to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul has the findings of studies carried out by the Irish League of Credit Unions and others which showed that almost 50% of the population must borrow money to pay basic bills. I expect the figure of one in ten will have increased significantly. Is the Government concerned about food poverty and does it have any specific proposals to address this aspect of poverty?
As the Deputy will recall from his time in government, the previous Government abolished the Combat Poverty Agency. The social inclusion division of my Department performs a role similar to that performed by the former agency. I have asked the division, which has great expertise in measuring poverty and examining what constitutes being less well-off, to examine this issue. I am pleased Deputy O'Dea acknowledged that I and my party are highly concerned about poverty.
Food poverty is one element of the poverty experience and has been defined as the inability to have an adequate and nutritious diet for reasons of affordability or accessibility. The emphasis on the issue of nutrition is critical as it raises the need for education on the use of food, diet and so forth. Households experiencing food poverty consume less nutritionally balanced diets and suffer from higher rates of diet related chronic diseases.
Sometimes people associate food poverty with a lack of food or low incomes when in many cases it is caused by the absence of a nutritious diet. While this may be related to income, it may also be because people do not have sufficient skills or knowledge in the area of nutritious food. We have a number of programmes in place for this reason. I am pleased to note that, notwithstanding the tight budgetary position in 2013, my Department spent €35 million last year on school meals, notably on the development of breakfast clubs and hot school meals. I prioritised this budget and increased it this year by €2 million to provide nutritious hot food to children as they start their school day. This is a positive social development in our education system.
The Minister did not answer my question as to whether she has a specific strategy, within a defined timeframe, to address food poverty. I referred to the document produced by the Labour Party prior to the general election which states that current Government policy does not address the issue of food poverty. Given that there has not been any change in policy, I must presume the current Government's policy is not addressing the issue either. The Labour Party document contained a number of specific proposals, including the introduction of a nutrition strategy for everybody in Ireland; measures to nutrition proof all relevant Government policies; extending the provision of free meals of a nutritional standard to every primary and secondary school child; and the introduction of a food and health action plan. Which of these proposals have been implemented in the past two and a half years?
I am not sure if the Deputy heard me when I stated that I prioritised the expansion of the school meals programme to ensure children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds and in DEIS schools, would secure greater access to the programme. This positive social development is taking place in the context of a difficult budgetary position. As I also indicated, the social inclusion division of my Department has been leading the development of policy in this area at my request as a Labour Party Minister. I am not aware that the Governments of which the Deputy was a member paid much attention to this issue.
When will the Minister produce proposals to deal with food poverty?
A 2012 paper on public policy proposed that there be an official measure of food poverty, which is inextricably linked to issues of finance, education, transport, literacy, culture, planning and retailing. As such, a solution requires a multisectoral approach across all relevant Departments. Food poverty is not an isolated issue that results in poor dietary intake but one aspect of wider social exclusion, which takes into account factors such as income, education and knowledge about nutrition. Some people spend a relatively large proportion of their income on poor quality food. All schools encourage children to bring nutritious packed lunches to school. I am supporting the school meals initiative, which provides hot food, and the programme is expanding at this time of great economic difficulty and pressure on budgets. I am delighted to be in a position to support it.