Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have two more questions. My first is in regard to Barnardos and the hot meals programme that was mentioned in the opening statement. We need to start looking at the DEIS criteria and how that is done. There are schools in parts of my area that have high levels of poverty but they are not in areas that traditionally have high levels of poverty. For example, they could be areas with many HAP tenancies and insecure tenancies, and the cost of rent and the cost of living is going up. Even from talking to the local food bank in my area, I know there are people accessing the food bank who are from areas that did not traditionally access it.

When I was a kid, I would have been one of those who accessed the meals programme and my brothers and sisters and my neighbours would have done the same. There was no stigma in it because everybody was in the same boat. It helped me to get through coming from a disadvantaged area because there was food in my stomach when I was coming home from school. Now, parts of my area have kids going to school hungry and coming home from school hungry, which is really not good enough in 2021.

Do the witnesses from Barnardos have any input into how we might modernise the DEIS criteria or the DEIS programme to make it 2021-proof, for want of a better term?