Mr. Stuart Duffin:

I thank the joint committee for this opportunity to present our views. I apologise for the tome I sent concerning my catch-all, area-based poverty strategy for Ireland. We took the decision to write something as comprehensive as that because of my previous experience of working on a poverty strategy within the Scottish Parliament and also due to our recent work with Ms Barbara Matera, MEP in the European Parliament on lone parents across Europe.

One Family is Ireland's national organisation for lone parents, including those who are in transition either to one or two-parent families. Fundamentally, One Family believes that an area-based approach is crucial, but such an approach needs to be outcome focused. It is only through such an approach that we will begin to reduce child poverty.

Any welfare system should provide security of income, support transition to employment and allow those who cannot afford to work to live in dignity. In doing that we provide a range of welfare to work services across Ireland. These welfare to work services are targeted at lone parents to give them the emotional lift to make the positional shift either into work or education. One of the tenets of our approach to area-based poverty is that employment is one of the key routes in helping to get people out of poverty.

We have a number of current challenges. We are seeing an increased risk of poverty due to dependence on welfare and no spare financial resources. We are seeing tax and welfare traps coupled with transition costs in the system that deepen poverty and exclusion for lone parents. We are seeing internal barriers linked to clients' low confidence and low self-esteem. Another barrier is the lack of access to high quality, flexible and affordable child care.

We have also been examining the education system where we find low educational attainment arising from early school leaving. This highlights the relevance of qualifications as lone parents are being activated back into the work or education environment, given the current labour market requirements. As has been said previously, there are two economies in Ireland: the international trading economy and the domestic one. However, lone parents and many people of low educational skills have very limited access to jobs in the domestic economy. Meanwhile, access to the higher level, internationally traded economy is still more difficult, given the lack of access to subjects like science, technology, education and maths.

An area-based strategy could tackle social isolation and lack of personal supports and networks. This is particularly the case if it is based around communities and the independent sector. Access to transport, education, training and employment both in urban and rural areas is crucial to an anti-poverty strategy focusing on child poverty.

We are also witnessing a range of health challenges arising from stress, domestic violence, legal issues or a poor sense of general well-being. Building up those social capital networks within communities is a key element in giving people an emotional lift to make that positional shift.

We would like to see a redesigning of how we tackle poverty.

At present, there is a lack of commissioning of services at local level in particular. There are too many pilots and not enough mainstreaming. Responses tend to be unresponsive and bureaucratic, which does not help to support the transitions. We are unclear about the role of State and semi-State agencies in respect of pushing forward an anti-poverty strategy. A number of short-term funding initiatives to deal with critical issues are evident and while they are necessary, they never become mainstreamed and are never placed on a long-term footing. Consequently, organisations are constantly on the hamster wheel of funding in an attempt to secure funding for new elements. In addition, fragmentation across Ireland is evident, particularly with regard to services and access. We must have new ideas that create value and must deliver that climate of inspiration. While enterprise and innovation are the engines of growth, they also are the engines of growth in the social economy and in reducing poverty. Consequently, we must invest, consider the mix of services that are being provided and consider an outcome base that actually delivers for children.