Ms Karen Kiernan:

I will speak briefly and hand over to my colleague, Ms Kelly. On early years, it is under recommendations from the EU that one-parent families should receive free or extremely low-cost access to childcare. We are not aware of that being in Government policy or being looked at, but it will be arising in the coming months. The chair of the national advisory council on Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures, Tanya Ward, sent the full child poverty paper to the Chair. It is an 84-page document and is comprehensive in terms of what we would like to see in the poverty plan. It also addresses food poverty.

School meals were mentioned and are critical. We need to see them throughout the country and not just in a handful of schools.