Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The best obvious route from poverty is to find a job but the Minister may find it surprising that 16% of the people ascertained as living below the poverty line have a job. There is a specific commitment on page 22 of the programme for Government to combat and reduce incidence of poverty. In the Government's national reform programme for 2012, the target for Ireland was that consistent poverty would be reduced to 4% by 2016 and 2% by 2020. The figure in 2012 was 7.7%, so how confident is the Minister that we will achieve the target?

See this speech in context