Mary Lou McDonald
Ceist:1. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Taoiseach if he will provide an update on the proposed child poverty unit in his Department. [18063/23]
Amharc ar fhreagraWednesday, 26 April 2023
Ceisteanna (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
Mark Ward
Ceist:2. Deputy Mark Ward asked the Taoiseach for an update on the child poverty unit to be established within his Department; and when he expects it to first meet. [18083/23]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Paul McAuliffe
Ceist:3. Deputy Paul McAuliffe asked the Taoiseach if he will provide an update on the proposed child poverty unit in his Department. [18852/23]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Jennifer Murnane O'Connor
Ceist:4. Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor asked the Taoiseach if he will provide an update on the proposed child poverty unit in his Department. [19221/23]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Ruairí Ó Murchú
Ceist:5. Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú asked the Taoiseach if he will provide an update on the proposed child poverty unit in his Department. [19260/23]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Gino Kenny
Ceist:6. Deputy Gino Kenny asked the Taoiseach if he will provide an update on the proposed child poverty unit in his Department. [19380/23]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Ivana Bacik
Ceist:7. Deputy Ivana Bacik asked the Taoiseach if he will provide an update on the child poverty unit in his Department. [19241/23]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Gary Gannon
Ceist:8. Deputy Gary Gannon asked the Taoiseach if he will provide an update on the proposed child poverty unit in his Department. [19317/23]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Richard Boyd Barrett
Ceist:9. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach if he will provide an update on the proposed child poverty unit in his Department. [19371/23]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Paul Murphy
Ceist:10. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach if he will provide an update on the proposed child poverty unit in his Department. [19374/23]
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Bríd Smith
Ceist:11. Deputy Bríd Smith asked the Taoiseach if he will provide an update on the proposed child poverty unit in his Department. [19377/23]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Mick Barry
Ceist:12. Deputy Mick Barry asked the Taoiseach if he will provide an update on the proposed child poverty unit in his Department. [19497/23]
Amharc ar fhreagraFreagraí ó Béal (9 píosaí cainte)
I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 12, inclusive, together.
Our vision is to make Ireland the best country in Europe in which to be a child. The role of the Department of the Taoiseach will be to co-ordinate and focus Government action on this objective.
Poverty restricts a child's opportunity. I recently informed Cabinet colleagues that the new child poverty and well-being programme office has been established. The areas it will focus on are as follows: income supports and joblessness; early learning and childcare; reducing the cost of education; family homelessness; consolidating and integrating family and parental support, health and well-being; and enhancing participation in culture, arts and sport for children and young people affected by poverty.
The initial focus of the office will be on drawing up a sequenced work programme for these areas. There has been broad engagement with civil society organisations, Departments and statutory agencies to identify the policy areas for the new programme office.
The office will operate within the social policy and public service reform division of the Department of the Taoiseach, which has developed the work to date. Assignment to the new dedicated programme team is well under way.
Further work and engagement is ongoing to inform the scope and programme of work of the programme office. The aim is to ensure the programme office brings added value as well as strategic leadership and enhanced accountability to the child poverty and well-being agenda and makes a tangible difference to the lives of children and their families.
The 2016 programme for Government committed to tackling child poverty and preventing family and youth homelessness. Earlier this year, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child reported serious concern about the large number of children in Ireland living in poverty, food insecurity and homelessness. The hurt and trauma for homeless children and young people was documented by the Ombudsman for Children in 2012 and repeatedly in the office's annual reports before and after the children's experience of homelessness in Ireland report published more than a decade ago. Indeed, Focus Ireland has set out how children living in homelessness causes such severe trauma which can result in lifelong damage. The Government scored a D on housing in the Children's Rights Alliance report card for this year, the organisation highlighting that a key driver of family homelessness is the lack of affordable secure housing and an over-reliance on private market provision.
In its child guarantee action plan, the Government has committed to the delivery of 90,000 new social homes and 18,000 cost rentals by 2030. Not alone are these targets insufficient, we know well that under a Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil Government, these targets will never be met. Will the Taoiseach say if the new unit will prioritise child homelessness in its schedule of work and if this work will include an implementation and monitoring mechanism to ensure past failures to deliver will not be repeated?
The Taoiseach mentioned well-being and I want to talk about the well-being of children in mental health services. When the Government came into office, 2,112 children were waiting for a first-time appointment with the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS. Currently, there is an all-time record high of 4,434 young children waiting for a first-time appointment. That is a 110% increase on the Taoiseach's watch. What is worse, 682 children are waiting more than a year for an appointment. That is a 215% increase under this Government. They say early intervention is key. This is on top of 11,000 children who are waiting for primary care psychology and also children waiting up to 30 weeks for an appointment with Jigsaw. The statistics do not lie. The Ombudsman for Children, Dr. Niall Muldoon, called the investment into CAMHS an insult to our children. We have numerous reports into the mistreatment and overmedication of children in CAMHS. I put it to the Taoiseach that the Government has been a complete failure when it comes to children's mental health and I want to know what the Taoiseach will do about this.
I have a subsequent question on the north-east inner city project but I welcome the initiative which the Taoiseach has brought to his office on the proposed unit on child poverty. At the root of many of the issues in many disadvantaged communities is the issue of child poverty and how child poverty over the lifetime of a person impacts the different social needs both a person and a community can have. I am interested to hear the Taoiseach's views about whether he believes there is an overlap between the great work being done by Ms Liz Canavan and the team who have initiated the north-east inner city project and the programme for Government commitment to expand that in a sustainable way. This child poverty unit and the project have much in common. There are clear differences and different objectives, but I believe that they can inform the work of each other. I will reserve my questions in regard to the expansion of the north-east inner city project to my later question.
I welcome today Carlow receiving in excess of €734,000 for the free schoolbooks for primary school children. Something so important that I worked so hard on is the hot meals for all DEIS primary schools in September.
The work for non-DEIS schools will hopefully happen shortly after, within the next few years. That is part of the plan. It is so important that children are looked after but I have one concern in Carlow. There is no occupational therapy for children and the waiting list for the public service is incredibly long. Speech and language and the children's disability network team, CDNT, assessments are working from referrals given in 2019. These children's families cannot afford to pay for the private assessment. Will the Taoiseach clarify this? My understanding is that the State was meant to be providing this private service. Why is the State not stepping in when children who need these assessments are not getting them? There is no question that money is an issue. Children in Carlow are entering mainstream education in my area this September who have never seen a therapist. This is a huge concern for me. I have been working closely with the Minister of State, Deputy Anne Rabbitte, on this. There are really distressed families and children who really need to be assessed. I feel that we are hitting a crisis now. I ask that everything be done to help these families. I welcome the good news story today for all primary schools getting the free books scheme.
If we are serious about tackling child poverty, first of all, we have to deal with those necessary services that are not available to our citizens. We are talking about those in the most peripheral of places and the most disadvantaged. I have spoken to the Taoiseach before to say that what we really need are these early interventions. Those include family support interventions and also wider community interventions. We need to put a plan in place for that. On the day that AsIAm is here, when we are talking about making Leinster House autism-friendly, which is all to be welcomed, we have to deal with the fact we all know the issues that exist with child disability services, particularly for autism. There are not enough occupational therapists, speech and language therapists or psychologists. This needs to be addressed. The unfortunate thing is that those who do not have the resources and do not have the money fall further behind. This is just not good enough.
Child poverty has significantly increased as a result of the cost-of-living crisis. It has increased from 202,000 to 236,000 children facing enforced deprivation. The number at risk of poverty has jumped by about 20,000. We now have 89,000 children living in consistent poverty. All of those suggest a serious failure of this Government to protect children, who are our most vulnerable citizens. Maybe the worst aspect of the failure of this State to protect children is the number of children in homeless accommodation, with many more now facing that because of the raising of the eviction ban. What will the Taoiseach do to prioritise protecting children against the trauma that, in many cases, will damage them for life? It will certainly steal very significant parts of their childhood if they end up in emergency accommodation.
To give one example, the case I have raised on multiple occasions here is that of a mother who has been in emergency accommodation with her child for four years. Her child was eight when they went into emergency accommodation and is now 12. His mental health is on the floor. He cannot bring his friends around because he shares a room with his mother in the emergency accommodation. She, ironically, works with Tusla, looking after vulnerable children. Does the Taoiseach not think he has a responsibility to get children like that out of emergency accommodation and to prevent others from going into that terrible, unacceptable situation? What will he do for people like her and others in similar situations?
I want to ask the Taoiseach about the crisis facing many children who are in Tusla's care. I spoke to an impressive young man a couple of weeks ago. He is a 16-year-old who is in care. He has been in care for about ten years. He lived with his mother for the first five or six years of his life and then he was taken into care. He is currently 16 and lives with his grandmother. He said that up until he was about 15 and a half, the service he had from Tusla was amazing. He always had a social worker who was very supportive and so on. About a year ago, his social worker left him. He was told that it would only take a couple of weeks for the social worker to be replaced, but the social worker has still not been replaced. Instead, he has got a part-time social care worker who is not a qualified social worker and is not able to give the same support that a social worker is able to give and the support that he is supposed to get. It is even affecting his ability to have visits with his mother. They have to be supervised visits but the absence of staff has meant that it has been difficult to get visits.
This is apparently not an isolated case. The children in care team is operating at about 30% capacity. The same issues we have seen with nurses and teachers are now affecting social workers, particularly in Dublin. There is another issue, which is accommodation. Some 500 children a year turn 18, come out of care, and a big number go straight into homeless services because there is no or very little proper, appropriate accommodation for people who are emerging from care in that way.
I thank the Deputies for their questions. We have seen a huge increase in the budget for mental health services for children and young people and an increase in staff. There is of course also an increase in demand. We have challenges getting staff and some deficiencies in the system regarding how the services are deployed and best used. I know the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, and Minister, Deputy Donnelly, will want to talk about this more on another occasion.
Deputy McAuliffe asked about the north-east inner city project. There is an overlap, without doubt. Both programmes will answer to assistant secretary general Liz Canavan, so she will have a certain degree of oversight of both. We thought of combining them but I took the decision that they are best kept separate because the north-east inner city project is about more than children and child poverty. We thought one might dilute the other if we put them in the same office, so we are not doing that, but they will answer to the same assistant secretary general.
Deputy Murnane O'Connor welcomed the allocation of free schoolbooks to all primary schools in Carlow. I welcome that too. It is a major step forward. It was an issue proposed by Barnardos a long time ago. I remember meeting with Barnardos. It was piloted under the former Minister, Deputy Joe McHugh, in the last Government. I am pleased that the Minister, Deputy Foley, is taking it forward under this Government and extending it to all primary schools. We will see how it goes. If it goes well, I would like to see it being extended to secondary schools at some point in the future. Let us see how it works in primary schools first. I hear what Deputy Murnane O'Connor has to say about the occupational therapy service and the deficiencies that exist in Carlow. I know that must be causing a lot of distress for parents in the county. I know the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, is aware of the issue already. I will take it up with her too and see if there is something we can do to improve the situation.
Regarding children experiencing homelessness, the most recent figures, as Deputies will know, show that approximately 1,600 families are in emergency accommodation. About half of those are one-parent families, with just over 3,000 child dependents. In the vast majority of cases, it is for a matter of months but in some cases it is for longer than that. The Government recognises that helping families and children experiencing homelessness involves a multi-agency approach. Housing for All, the Government's housing plan, is committed to the enhancement of early intervention services for children and their families through a multi-agency, co-ordinated response. That includes prioritising exiting families from homelessness, preventing families from going into homelessness in the first place and providing sufficient help for families experiencing homelessness.
It is important to say that €215 million, a 10% increase in budget, has been allocated for this year. That has been allocated to local authorities and NGOs. That is to provide homelessness prevention services because the most cost-effective way of dealing with this issue is preventing homelessness in the first place. The plan also provides emergency accommodation and other services for families experiencing homelessness. Our target is to create 1,300 new Housing First tenancies. The programme office will also provide a focus on how other assistance can help to prevent homelessness and help those in homeless services to transition out of them.