Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I certainly would not be asking the Minister to do it in one year but I ask if she could begin the process in the next budget. The Minister also referred to the roadmap on social inclusion. We have been asking about this roadmap for a long time because, as the Minister will know, it was published two years late, having been due in 2017. The Minister will notice from the response of the organisations on the front line, for example, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Social Justice Ireland and the European Anti-Poverty Network Ireland, that they all note that the roadmap does not refer to bringing social welfare rates in line and benchmarking them to adequacy. That is very obvious in the roadmap for social inclusion. We know that poverty in the State is an ongoing crisis. Social Justice Ireland goes as far as to say that it does not believe poverty will have changed in any way, shape or form at the end of this inclusion plan.

The Minister mentioned the pre-budget forum. Adequacy is always mentioned as a priority in that forum. The Minister must also consider the CSO report on enforced deprivation, which shows that rates of deprivation have gone up. Has she read the report? More than one in five children are experiencing deprivation and more than 45% of lone parent families are living in deprivation. Those matters need to be dealt with.

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