Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for allowing me to put this on the record of the House. Our roadmap for social inclusion is far more than just another report. The use of that term says a lot about the Deputy's opinion. I intend to bring the social inclusion strategy to Cabinet for review at the earliest opportunity. I received a draft of our new social inclusion strategy only last week. It will have a whole-of-Government approach which recognises the shared responsibility across Government to achieve improved outcomes for the most vulnerable and marginalised in our society who I am happy to represent and do my best to look after. The roadmap will state a clear ambition to achieve the long-held, but as yet unrealised, target of reducing consistent poverty to 2% or less. It also aspires to make Ireland one of the most socially inclusive states in the EU. It sets a number of specific targets to be achieved across various sectors of government and identifies commitments to be delivered by each Department with timelines for delivery.

The roadmap will reflect the most recent poverty data from the 2018 survey on income and living conditions, SILC, published by the CSO last week.

That data shows that the consistent poverty rate decreased to 5.6% in 2018, down from 6.7% in 2017. The percentage of the population experiencing deprivation also decreased significantly, falling to 15.1% from 18.8% in 2017. The percentage at risk of poverty rate decreased to 14% from 15.7% in 2017.

It is nice to know that the decisions we make in this House that impact some of the-----

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