Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

——from 1.7% previously. They are real people and their circumstances concern me and the Government. As I stated in my reply, there are a multiplicity of issues we try to achieve to lift those people out of poverty. There are a number of obvious areas, one being the family income support scheme, which supports those families, members of which are at work but who are still at risk of poverty, directly based on the number of children. Those supports have increased. The number in receipt of family income supplement, FIS, has almost doubled from 12,000 to 23,000 and I expect that figure to reach 30,000 this year. We are on course to reach the full cohort of people who require these types of supports. Likewise, the back to school clothing and footwear allowance is of significant benefit to low-income families in need of support.

It is important that we entirely eliminate consistent poverty, which stands at 1.6%. The best way to do this is to enhance employment and educational opportunities in terms of the career paths available to people. In addition, we must make it much easier for people to move from the social welfare system into employment. In particular, we must be careful not to penalise those at the lower end of the income scale by removing all their social welfare benefits. The welfare system has become far more flexible and amenable in this regard. We will continue to target resources in this area so as to improve the situation for the 1.6% of the population living in consistent poverty.

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