John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As the Minister knows, 760,000 people in the State are living below the poverty line. Children under the age of 16 years comprise almost 24% of that cohort. Over 100,000 people in the State get up early in the morning to go to work, but are in poverty nonetheless. The Government is not serious about addressing this problem. I say that because the action plan for social inclusion is out of date. We have yet to see a new action plan. How can we tackle the problem of poverty without an action plan? When I was bringing forward the Bill I mentioned at the outset, I met the stakeholders whose views the Minister said we need to take into account. They are all broadly in supportive of the need for this commission. I accept that we need to look carefully at the composition of the commission. I outlined that in the Bill I introduced. I think it could be based on the Low Pay Commission. A commission is needed. We need to get serious about tackling the massive problem of poverty. This is a key way of doing it. If the serious issue of poverty is to be tackled for once and for all, we need to take the politics out of the setting of social welfare rates across the board.

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