Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 19 June 2018
42. Deputy Willie O'Dea asked the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection when the new national anti-poverty strategy will be published, the reason the strategy has not been published to date and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26405/18]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe question is self-explanatory.
Tackling poverty remains a fundamental aspiration of all of Irish society. In particular, A Programme for a Partnership Government includes a firm commitment to develop a new integrated framework for social inclusion to tackle the inequality and poverty that, unfortunately, still exist in society. This will be a successor to the National Action Plan for Social Inclusion 2007-2016 and its 2015 to 2017 update, which concluded last year.
My Department is developing the new four-year plan for the period from 2018 to 2021. Like its predecessor, the plan will have a whole-of-Government approach that aims to improve outcomes for vulnerable and marginalised people while recognising a shared responsibility across Government to implement actions to achieve the overall objectives. The theme of the new plan is one of active inclusion, which will enable every citizen, most notably, I hope, the disadvantaged, to participate fully in society. This includes having a job.
The primary focus will be the reduction of consistent poverty, which was 8.3% in 2016, a figure none of us is happy about. This will be achieved through a three-pronged approach: supporting incomes through a level of employment that is as high as possible and encouraging and assisting people to enter the workforce; setting targets for the level of relevant welfare payments designed to reduce relative poverty among those who cannot work or cannot find work; and improving access to quality services such as health, education, childcare, training, housing and community supports to minimise deprivation for all groups, in particular those who are on relatively low incomes. Officials in my Department are working with their colleagues, both internally and in other Departments, to identify specific actions for inclusion in the plan.
As a Department, we place a high value on our engagement with those who need to access our services and with the range of organisations that represent those experiencing poverty and social exclusion. Consultation regarding the development of the new plan began last year with the 2017 social inclusion forum where the new plan was the main topic of discussion. This was followed by an online public consultation process in February and March 2018 and further discussions that were very robust at the 2018 social inclusion forum. This allowed my Department to gather responses from individuals who have real-life experience of poverty and social exclusion as well as from NGOs and those working in the community and voluntary sector and academia, which will inform the development of the plan.
I thank the Minister for the enormous amount of information she has given me. I got everything but an answer to my question, which concerns when the plan will be published.
Autumn. Sorry.
Why has it not been published to date? I welcome the fact that there is an anti-poverty strategy. Even though the economy is in better shape, problems persist and poverty does not seem to be reducing in tandem with economic growth. For example, 10,000 people are homeless, 50,000 lone parents are classified as living in deprivation, 102,000 people are considered to be the working poor, and 780,000 people are on incomes below the internationally accepted poverty line. The strategy is to run from 2018 to 2021. We are more than halfway through 2018 so when will the strategy be published?
My apologies. I missed the very last line of that whole spiel. The strategy will be published in the autumn. The key element of the national action plan for social inclusion involves the national social targets for poverty reduction, which the Deputy mentioned, which set out the Government's ambition to reduce and, it is hoped, at some point in the very near future, to eliminate poverty. The headline target is to reduce consistent poverty to 2% or less by 2020 with an interim target of 4% by 2016 from the 2010 baseline rate of 6.3%. In addition, there are subtargets relating to children for Ireland's contribution to the European 2020 poverty target. Meeting these targets or at least making significant progress towards meeting them by the 2020 deadline will be a challenge that will require the combined efforts of all Departments boosted by the resources and commitment of civil society. This does remain, however, a key commitment of the plan to address the poverty target and to make sure we put in specific actions, timelines and dates towards those actions to make sure we achieve our overall target.
Are there any plans to ring-fence some funding to achieve the Government's objectives? In the absence of ring-fencing, targets often turn into aspirations.
Much of the money we use or that we spent towards the last plan was ring-fenced for certain schemes. I do not see any difference with regard to achieving the objectives in this plan. As I said, it is a whole-of-Government approach. The Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection is not going to wipe out poverty on its own. As much as social transfers have an enormous impact on people's weekly incomes, they certainly do not wipe out poverty. The only way we will be able to wipe out consistent poverty is to provide not only the income supports people need, the activation into work and the continuous support for people in that work until they achieve such levels of income that they do not need support from the State, but also public transport, public health and child care that is supported financially by the State. There are myriad things that will reflect around the lives of people living in consistent poverty to improve them.
