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

A number of initiatives under the Department of the Taoiseach deal with the issue of child poverty and tackling disadvantage. Enda Kenny established this in the north-east inner city and the Taoiseach rolled that out to other communities, including my own in Ballymun. The former Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, established the child poverty unit. As we head into the second part of the programme, there is the possibility to try to bring some of those programmes together and embed them into each of the Departments. While leadership from the Taoiseach's office is really important in a programme like that, we also need sustainability in those programmes. In particular, I ask that the child poverty unit looks at those areas covered by the north-east inner city roll-out model, for want of a better word, and that the two units work closely together or are brought together.

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