Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for their contributions to the statements this afternoon. I look forward to my engagement with Dr. Muldoon when we meet in the coming weeks to discuss his proposals in the A Better Normal document in greater detail. The child guarantee I spoke about earlier will help Ireland to sharpen its response and frameworks towards the goal of all children growing up with the same opportunities and access to quality support services that will allow them to thrive in society in a post-pandemic world. The Government is taking steps to prepare for this process. My Department has just established a new EU and international unit that will play a key role in the co-ordination of the necessary actions emerging from the EU child guarantee. The effective implementation of the EU child guarantee will involve the active input of all key Government Departments and agencies. The experience of my Department in the implementation of Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures will inform the design and implementation of the child guarantee to ensure it is collaborative, integrated and impactful. EU funds are available to support measures addressing child poverty, social exclusion and, by extension, the implementation of the child guarantee. The Commission's proposals emphasise that a child guarantee will only be effective if it triggers national investments and, as was just mentioned, a supportive and enabling policy framework.

The design of any national action plan for its implementation will be crucial to its success. Therefore, a new national policy framework for children and young people for Ireland, or Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures 2, will be an essential future component, working in parallel with our implementation of the EU child guarantee. Of course, given its experience and insight, the National Advisory Council for Children and Young People has already been invited to give input and to collaborate with Government on the implementation of the EU child guarantee. It goes without saying that the implementation of the child guarantee will also necessitate close engagement with and input from key Departments and agencies across Government. My own Department has recently appointed an attaché in Brussels who will underpin critical EU and international work, not least with regard to the child guarantee. This attaché will be a key conduit in managing international matters as part of the EU and international unit. All of this will build on the previous work advanced under the Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures whole-of-government approach to addressing child poverty and will align with existing international instruments to which Ireland is a party, for example, the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as future proposed developments such as Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures 2 and existing frameworks such as the roadmap for social inclusion.

Any increases to core social welfare rates are considered in an overall budgetary and policy context and, as part of the annual budgetary process, the Department takes an evidence-based approach in order to ensure that available resources are efficiently allocated to deliver the best impact for social welfare recipients. For example, the minimum essential standards of living, MESL, research, which was mentioned by Deputies, has consistently shown that households with children, and particularly older children, face higher costs than those without. Since 2019, the increase for a qualified child, IQC, rate in respect of children aged under 12 has been increased by €4 per week, while the rate for children aged 12 and over was increased by €8 per week, bringing the current rates to €38 and €45 respectively. In addition, the Department of Social Protection undertakes social impact assessments using the SWITCH and tax welfare microstimulation models developed by the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI. This allows the Department to model the impact of specified proposed budgetary changes such as increases to the qualified child rate, changes to weekly income disregards for the working family payment or changes in weekly rates.

Many Deputies raised the issue of homelessness, and child homelessness in particular. As causal factors and family circumstances vary considerably, so too must the responses. Eradicating homelessness by 2030 is an ambitious goal which necessitates the co-ordinated actions of a wide variety of agencies and stakeholders. Housing for All confirms a housing-led approach to tackling homelessness for all groups. This approach acknowledges that the most effective way to address homelessness is to provide more homes. Under Housing for All, there are specific and costed plans to increase supply across all tenure types, including very significant commitments to social and affordable housing, with over 90,000 social homes, 36,000 affordable homes and 18,000 cost-rental homes, cost rental being a brand new type of tenure that is being introduced, all to be delivered by 2030. Some €4 billion in capital is being invested in social and affordable housing annually. This is the biggest programme of this kind in the history of our State.

Housing for All includes 18 distinct actions tailored to eradicate homelessness. It recognises that suitable housing conditions are a key social determinant of health. Collaborative delivery of housing and health supports will ensure that no person is excluded from either housing or health support and that health support will be an integral component of settlement and a person's return to independent living. The Government has committed to maintaining and consolidating the enhanced health service supports for homeless persons put in place for 2020 and 2021 in response to the pandemic. As part of the public health response to Covid-19, access to health services for people who are homeless was significantly enhanced, initially in the HSE's winter plan, and was subsequently extended to cover all of 2021, with an additional expenditure of €11 million.

Housing for All will build on the co-operation and co-ordination actions already in place and developed in minimising the impact of Covid-19 on homeless persons. As we know, many homeless families have found themselves trapped in long-term homelessness. Housing for All commits the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to working with local authorities and NGOs to identify families experiencing long-term homelessness who have complex support needs. Those who do will be provided with enhanced tenancy sustainment supports to help them exit homelessness and maintain their homes. Additional supports are to be provided to families by Tusla.

Irrespective of their background, all children have a right to education to enable them to live a full life as a child and to realise their potential as unique individuals. There are considerable supports available to children who are homeless both within schools and within the wider system to ensure that homelessness does not impact on school participation and attendance. National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, psychologists can provide advice and guidance to principals and teachers in respect of the needs of individual students and in the development of a whole-school approach to support inclusion, participation and integration. In addition, NEPS supports schools to implement early intervention and resilience building programmes.

DEIS is the main policy initiative of the Department of Education to tackle educational disadvantage at school level. In the 2021-22 academic year, there are 884 schools in the DEIS programme serving more than 186,000 pupils and comprising 687 schools at primary level and 197 at post-primary level. The Department of Education is providing €150 million in 2021 for the suite of supports available to schools participating in DEIS programmes. Supports include additional teaching posts in DEIS band 1 schools, 415 home-school community liaison co-ordinators, DEIS grants, enhanced book grants and some €26 million towards the school completion programme. The rationale for providing supports to DEIS schools is that empirical evidence suggests that students attending schools with a concentration of students from disadvantaged backgrounds have poorer academic outcomes. Where children experiencing homelessness are not attending DEIS schools, they still have access to a range of supports available from my Department, the Department of Social Protection and Tusla educational welfare officers.

The Tusla education support service, TESS, seeks to maximise attendance, participation and retention in school to try to ensure that the education placement does not break down and to ensure that the protective factors of maintaining school engagement are capitalised on. TESS's response to children and families experiencing homelessness, or who are at risk of homelessness, is to identify supports that assist with the educational welfare of children and families who are experiencing homelessness. These include breakfast clubs and homework clubs operated via the school completion programme.

My Department recently announced the Covid learning and support scheme, CLASS, which has been put in place for the 2021 school year to help schools mitigate the adverse impacts of Covid-19 on pupil and student supports, learning loss and well-being issues arising from the periods of school closure in 2020 and 2021. Under that programme, a block of additional teaching hours is being provided to each recognised school from which it can provide additional teaching support for the pupils who have experienced difficulties in settling back into school and engaging with learning. I know from schools I have visited in my constituency in recent weeks that these additional supports are welcomed.

I thank Deputies for their contributions to the debate this afternoon. I have outlined a number of actions the Government is taking to address child poverty and children in homelessness. I have also set out clearly our engagement with the EU child guarantee, which we will see as a major focal point in tackling child poverty and linking that with the Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures, BOBF, successor strategy.

I look forward to my engagement in the next two weeks with the Ombudsman for Children to discuss in greater detail his A Better Normal initiative and to engaging with Deputies in terms of how we respond to that as a House.

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