Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I too welcome the commitment when the Taoiseach took office to have a child poverty initiative and to have the report. We should note not only did the ESRI say the budget is progressive but it also went on to say it reduces the at-risk-of-poverty rates for most groups. However, we have to work on lone parents and those with disability in their family. There is more work for us to do there.

The Pobal deprivation index has shown people’s circumstances have improved and has put us back to 2006 levels but the gap is widening. There are more people in the extremely or very disadvantaged category; of course, there are more people in the country and that is connected. One of the ways we have done that is area-based interventions. I know next week the Taoiseach’s Department will meet stakeholders in Ballymun to begin the process of putting in place that area-based intervention. Perhaps a way to do it would be to have an automatic trigger when a deprivation index goes below a certain rating so that agency responses are put in place.

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