Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I have listened to many of the speakers. There are a lot of good ideas and conversations happening on this issue but what is required is action from the Government. I will give a couple of examples of where the Government is seriously breaking down and where the weight is being left in this crisis. A couple of years ago, the Meath Food Bank was without a home. I offered those who run it the use of my constituency office. Since then, one of their main activists, Aisling Lowe, has fed countless children and parents from my constituency office in Trim, many of whom are desperately seeking food on a daily basis. The level of child poverty throughout the country is harrowing. I think of Brother Kevin Crowley in the Capuchin Day Centre in Dublin. Again, we regularly see images of mothers with babies in buggies queueing on the roadside for nappies, baby food, etc. It would break your heart.

As a pro-life activist, I find the neglect of these young women and their children by the Government shocking. It has been left to charities to pick up the weight in respect of this issue. We are a nation with a big heart and we like to help. Many people get involved with charities, etc., but it should not be left to the charity sector to deal with this crisis on a daily basis. It should not be reliant on the generosity of the Irish people to pick up this weight. I am hearing about the lack of Departments working together. I know of a homeless student who was refused the Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, grant last year. He is homeless and yet was still refused a SUSI grant. Another student who was a primary carer for his or her father was refused the grant. Many people in these situations are slipping through the cracks. I cannot understand why the Department of Health, the HSE, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth or Tusla do not work together, for example, with the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science on these issues. If it was the other way around and a student was receiving the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, grant, for example, there is no doubt in my mind that Departments would work seamlessly together with the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science to make sure that student was refused a SUSI grant in that situation.

The Minister is talking about ending direct provision, but last year my office received a phone call from a man living in direct provision accommodation who was on hunger strike. I asked that man why and what he wanted; he said he wanted money to be able to buy baby food for his daughter. How can a Government that dresses itself up in progressive political clothes tolerate a situation that is so cruel to so many people in Irish society? Another situation with regard to direct provision is that many people who have been granted asylum and international protection after a long and tedious process still find themselves stuck in these centres because the State is not offering the financial means for them to build a life for their families from scratch. I have asked this question of the Minister through Written Questions and he informed me 1,185 people in this State are in that situation. When I asked members of the Government what they are doing about it, they stated they were talking to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and the Peter McVerry Trust to sort it out. Again, this is another example of the Government outsourcing responsibilities to other organisations to do the work it should be doing. It is an absolute disgrace.

Where is the comprehensive 360° plan to get rid of poverty in Irish society? Does one exist? Everywhere I look for that kind of comprehensive focus on ridding this country of child poverty, it is nowhere to be seen. What we have is a Government dressing up itself in a language that sounds good but is not delivering on the action and is offloading the responsibility to community groups and charities to do the heavy lifting. That needs to stop.

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