Ms Audry Deane:

I will quickly mention housing and rent supplement. We could use up all of our time before this committee decrying the €500 million spent on rent supplement, but there would not be any point in doing so. To give Deputy Willie O'Dea some insights, the families and households with which the Society of St. Vincent de Paul work and which, unfortunately, are at the wrong of the food chain with regard to private rented sector accommodation are the most vulnerable. The interaction between social welfare payments and taxation makes it difficult for people with families to genuinely consider taking up employment. This is almost an unemployment trap and is a huge challenge for Ireland. Deputy Willie O'Dea also referred to single males and stated that while the poverty line for such individuals was €204, their incomes from social welfare payment was €188. The latter amount is €186 if the person concerned is on supplementary welfare assistance, of which €32 goes towards rent. The sums just do not add up in this regard. We are aware of top-ups and double-tenancy agreements. We have contributed our insights on these matters and are aware that the housing assistance payment and the RAS will - technicalities dealt with aside - assist us in getting to a better place in the coming years. We simply cannot continue to spend €500 million on rent supplement and that is not the solution.

On preschool services, the early child care supplement introduced by the previous Government which cost €486 million per year was not a particularly good use of taxation because it left no legacy of improved quality. It was simply a direct cash payment to parents and did nothing to improve the infrastructure, quality or standards in the sector. These are all in sore need of reinforcement. We spend 0.1% on the early years sector. For the information of Deputy McConalogue, we set out a range of the resources needed to develop the sector further. There should not be any move to row back on what is already in place, namely, the free preschool year for four year olds. In times of recession and retrenchment other countries have managed to ring-fence funding for this most precious cohort. We all know the statistics and economic arguments involved in respect of the return on investment, etc. However, I will not bore members by discussing them now. What I will say is this is a critical sector and quite an amount of development is required in it.

There is no after-school care infrastructure in place. In that context, we are deeply concerned about the activation of the lone-parent cohort. We are so concerned about the people concerned that we are carrying out research on how they are going to cope with the lack of resources when they are activated in the workforce. This matter does not just relate to lone parents. Any working parent is concerned about the huge cost implications of after-school care. We hope we can contribute to developing the architecture for the relevant strategy under the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald. We have great hopes for it.

To end on a positive note, we have a very innovative initiative in respect of school means which, in our view, does not cost a great deal but which has great potential in reinforcing and leveraging the capacity in the school meals sector. Schools are a fabulous setting in which to encourage the provision of healthy and nutritional food for disadvantaged children, in particular. We are aware of the statistics in this regard. One in five children goes to bed or school hungry because there is not enough food in his or her home.

We also know that one in six children do not have breakfast during the week. There are many statistics on this area and I am not going to shower them on the members at this late stage in the afternoon as they have a good deal to get through. The Minister, Deputy Burton, has so far successfully protected the school meals scheme which costs €37 million. It has amazing potential to be leveraged. The Departments of Education and Skills, Social Protection, Health, and Children and Youth Affairs should co-operate to contribute towards providing a budget that would be ring-fenced to improve potential outcomes. We know that the Health and Food for All organisation, which has huge competences and experience in this area, is engaging directly with the Department of Social Protection. We very much hope that the members will support the fact that the continuation of the school meals project is a no-brainer, and there are great solutions here that are ready to be applied.