Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

As Minister of State with responsibility for social inclusion in the Department of Social Protection, I welcome the findings of the budget 2023 expenditure report, which sets out how the measures taken in this year's budget have prioritised protecting the most vulnerable members of our society against the rising cost of living. This was published as part of the budget day documentation. The report notes that the first three income deciles, that is, those people who have the lowest incomes in the State, will proportionally benefit the most from the package of measures introduced under the budget. Increases in social welfare measures play a particularly important role for people in the lower income deciles.

Research that I commissioned from the ESRI earlier this year on the most effective ways to reduce poverty found that measures such as weekly rate increases, fuel allowance, the improvement to the working family payment thresholds that we saw yesterday and qualified child increases are effective mechanisms for reducing poverty.

As part of budget 2023, I am pleased to have secured funding to develop and implement a new scheme to tackle the issue of food poverty. This programme will further progress the work of the food poverty working group, which I established last year and comprises officials from a range of Departments, along with representatives from the community and voluntary sector. A procurement process will be run for the programme, which will be informed by research commissioned by the working group. The research is currently under way and is scheduled to be reported at the end of the year. It will also be informed by a report completed by my Department earlier this year on the range of initiatives and activities of various Departments on preventing and addressing food poverty.

Regarding my role in the Department of Rural and Community Development, I wish to reassure the community and voluntary sector that we are in the process of developing a scheme to help community and voluntary organisations to cushion the impact of the increased energy bills this winter. There will be more news on that in the coming weeks. Yesterday also saw an increase in the budget for the community services programme, which will allow us to introduce the restructured programme next year, with the new and fairer funding model.

Many Deputies will be aware of the new community centre investment fund.

There will be news about that in the third quarter this year, which is quite soon. It has been hugely oversubscribed but I am glad to say that yesterday we secured an increase in the budget for that. There is €20 million in funding for the community centre investment fund, to provide funding for upgrade and improvements to existing centres and to allow a new funding stream to support new centres where they are needed.

We have a national volunteering policy that is being delivered. We are delivering it with our partners in the community and voluntary sector across the country. Because we are investing in it we have a funded volunteer centre in every county, with funded staff. This budget will see the extraordinary capacity and work of our volunteer centres grow with an extra €1 million invested yesterday.

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