Mr. Paul Ginnell:

Yes, we have met them directly. As Anna Visser, who heads up that office, used to be in my position as the director of the European Anti-Poverty Network Ireland a good number of years ago, I think she understands some of the issues and challenges. It is really important that there is such a unit. A number of us in different areas would like to get things under an overarching Department like the Department of the Taoiseach, from which one can pull levers across Departments. It is a challenging place to be because this office still has to try to pull on the other Departments. It is a challenging position and role but it is important that it is there. However, we are still not seeing great progress in relation to child poverty. As has been raised earlier regarding the ESRI analysis, it looks like this budget may reduce the numbers in child poverty by about 2,000, which is a very small number. There is a still a long way to go. It is really important that such a unit exists. It is just that making it effective and implementation across the board seem to be a massive challenge. While I am speaking, I might add to that. Regarding the Department of Social Protection, three of us here, namely, Ms Bayliss, Mr. Thornton and myself, sit on the steering group for the implementation of the roadmap for social inclusion.

We play a critical role in that regard. It is important that we are there and that there are voices from the ground on those committees. However, we are still frustrated with regard to implementation. The report shows great success in terms of implementation, but we feel the reality does not reflect that. A major issue with strategies and how they are written and reported is that real progress on the ground is not reflected.