Dr. Niall Muldoon:

I hope that I can address it. I am new to this role and have not examined the legislation in that way yet, but my initial thoughts would be that there is already an understanding of child poverty. We have many top class agencies and individuals, including in Departments, who understand how child poverty is happening. It is still increasing. As far as I can tell, what is on the ground and the ability to resource are at issue. There are many programmes, for example, the breakfast clubs run by Barnardos. As Deputy Mulherin mentioned, funding is going to certain areas but is not necessarily being used in the best way. No more than in the case of mental health, support needs to be given to each of these areas. The supports and legislation have been designed, but there is not enough follow-through to prevent child poverty. One needs to start at the earliest possible point to help a family back onto its feet and learn how to assist its children in attending school and how to provide the best possible opportunities. We have those systems in place, but it may be a lack of resources that is the difficulty. It is not my place to comment on where those resources should come from or go and I do not know whether legislation would help the child poverty scenario, but there are opportunities to use what is already in place, make it better and allow those families to gather the supports we have designed and access them properly and in a coherent way, which has not been the case heretofore.

The eradication of child poverty is, as the Deputy mentioned, a large task. Many people are thinking in that direction, but I would need to consider it further before making proper comment.