Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)

I welcome all our guests. I also put on record our thanks to them for the considerable advocacy and work they do. It really is appreciated by someone like me, who runs clinics and offices. I know that goes for colleagues here as well. We see it on a daily basis.

The Community Platform's contribution summed it up by saying the group wanted an evidence-based and credible plan to address issue related to child poverty. Will Dr. O'Connor expand on that? I know they have gone into a bit of it with Deputy O'Reilly but what would he see as evidence-based and credible? I acknowledge the Community Platform has also sent us around the link to its report, What Would it Take to Eliminate Consistent Poverty by 2030?, but the witnesses might provide us with some of the headline figures on that again.

Regarding the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, I deal with the organisation, unfortunately, as many of my colleagues do, on an almost daily basis. Will Ms Bayliss give us some figures around what she is experiencing at the moment? In my experience, things are only getting worse. I presume the number of contacts, etc., the society is getting is increasing. It is important we put those numbers on record. We had officials from the Department in here before who trumpeted the Government on what it did in the budget. Unfortunately, they are gone and the witnesses are here. Maybe we should have it the other way around but that is the way it is.

We hear a lot from Government about the child and well-being unit in the Department of the Taoiseach and the way it will combat child poverty. Have any of the witnesses ever met officials from this office? If so, how often have they met them and what is their thoughts on the work the Department is doing?