Dr. Tricia Keilthy:

I might respond to the question on the all-of-government approach before handing over to Ms McGowan, who may want to add to the points on food poverty, an issue that arises frequently in our work in communities. On the all-of-government approach, the blueprint is there in the form of the Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures child poverty paper, which outlines exactly which areas require action to address child poverty, whether in education, housing, supports for parents or early intervention.

To facilitate the whole-of-government approach, a number of steps can be taken. From our point of view, it is critical to have a driving force behind tackling child poverty, which we foresee as a child poverty unit being established, co-located between the Departments of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and Social Protection, that would be tasked with developing child poverty plans, where each Department would have specific actions and targets it must deliver on. A key part of that would relate to ensuring our budgetary process was attuned to the need to reduce child poverty. That would involve ensuring all budgetary decisions have been properly poverty-proofed, meaning that, if a proposal were put forward, an assessment would be carried out to see what impact that would have on poverty, while ensuring that all decisions that are made will effectively reduce that.

It is about the collective impact of policy decisions, given that sometimes, a decision by, say, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage may improve circumstances for a household but that may be offset by a change in another policy area by another Department. For example, if social welfare payments increase, this may be negated if differential rent does not increase or if there is not a change there and the person’s income is taken in rent. That is about Departments coming together, discussing the collective impact of what they are doing and asking how they can ensure the budget is addressing child poverty.

Ms McGowan might speak to the issue of food poverty.