Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 23 November 2021

Joint Committee On Children, Equality, Disability, Integration And Youth

Child Poverty: Discussion (Resumed)

Ms Tanya Ward:

I thank Deputy Ward for the question. What happened in the UK was Tony Blair's Government introduced a Child Poverty Act. It required two things, namely, the British Government would have to present a child poverty action plan and establish a child poverty unit. What the unit did - it does not exist any more because the Tories did away with it - was bring together senior civil servants and researchers working across government to ensure different bits of government were introducing the kind of measures that needed to be introduced. Funding programmes were run as well. Things like poverty-proofing were also done.

We have talked a bit about the national childcare scheme. If there had been a child poverty unit, it would have done a child poverty analysis of it. It is the kind of stuff that used to happen in the past when the Combat Poverty Agency was in operation. It used to do some of that work. We think there needs to be a unit in the Government. What really strikes me at the moment when you look at the Government is that the talent is there across the Government. There are actually people with the expertise and knowledge to do work in this area but you see it being done in silos. We would like to see people being brought together. Those people are also doing this alongside other jobs. Let us say-----