Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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113. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if his attention has been drawn to the Better Outcomes Brighter Futures, National Advisory Council for Children and Young People paper; the actions he has taken to develop a national action plan to address child poverty as part of the next national policy framework; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5319/22]

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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What actions will the Minister's Department plan to take to implement the key recommendations from the Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures paper from the National Advisory Council for Children and Young People? What steps will be taken to develop a national action plan to address child poverty as part of the next national policy framework?

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I am very much aware of the National Advisory Council for Children and Young People's position paper on child poverty, which I published on my Department's website last week, along with the final Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures annual report and updated indicator set. I had excellent engagement with the advisory council on the issue, and I met with them in December specifically on the child poverty paper.

The Deputy will be aware that it is the Department of Social Protection that leads on the Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025, aimed at reducing poverty, including child poverty, and improving social inclusion. Last September I circulated the advisory council's paper to the BOBF consortium, and to the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien and the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, requesting them to give detailed consideration to the recommendations in the context of their budget 2022 discussions.

In respect of the council's recommendation to give voice to children experiencing poverty, my Department has published a request for tenders seeking methodological advice on hearing the voices of children who are in poverty. I have also met with the Ombudsman for Children regarding his A Better Normal report on child poverty and child homelessness. The Deputy will be aware that we have discussed that paper in this House.

In budget 2022, I secured additional funding within my Department to reduce childcare costs for parents and to reform the national childcare scheme to positively impact on children in socio-economically disadvantaged communities and, on services with high concentrations of families from socio-economically disadvantaged communities. The Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien's, officials and mine are in contact with regard to a new target for child poverty under the roadmap for social inclusion, and identifying a programme of work to address child poverty under the successor framework. I will meet with the Minister of State later this month on this issue.

I will shortly bring the draft EU child guarantee national action plan to Government. The plan addresses a number of critical matters: securing free access to early childhood education and care; education; and healthcare for children in need. As part of this process, and in developing the successor national policy framework to Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures, I will continue to engage with my Cabinet colleagues to pursue a coherent agenda on child poverty. A key part of that will be the Better Outcomes, Better Futures successor strategy.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister. I wanted to ask this question so we could raise the issue of child poverty. Whenever we get the opportunity to highlight it, I believe that we should. The Minister will be aware that the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth has also been considering the issue of child poverty. Representatives of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul were recently before the committee to discuss access to food and people still being hungry. It struck me when one of the witnesses said that in 2022 we still have children going to school hungry and coming home hungry. Food poverty is a key part of this. I am aware that the school meals programme comes under the remit of the Department of Education and perhaps this is where things sometimes fall down in this Chamber, which can happen when matters come under different Departments. I wanted to raise the issue of food poverty in particular but also childcare. My time is ticking, however, so I will come back to the childcare question later.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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It is always very important that we would address the issue of child poverty in this House. With regard to the specific elements of food poverty, the Deputy will be aware that in last year's budget and this year's, the free school meals programme was broadened. This is probably the most practical step we can take to provide immediate sustenance to young children and to support their education. Further to that, the Minister for Education has announced a broadening of the DEIS scheme, which again will provide greater supports for children in the most disadvantaged schools.

It is also worth noting that we discussed child poverty when we both came into these roles 18 months ago. There was a big concern that with Covid we would see a big spike. The child poverty figures released for 2020, which is the latest we have from December of last year, actually showed a drop. Some 14,000 children came out of child poverty, which is a 1.2% drop. It is a small drop but it does show that the measures we took during Covid, with the additional supports, did work. That spike we all feared did not happen and we actually had a decrease.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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That is a good argument for keeping some of those additional measures.

We hear all of the time that childcare is one of the key issues. I am aware there has been increased investment, and that there is a plan for a joint labour committee, JLC, which is all very welcome, but we also need to keep the focus on as much investment as possible. We know it is mainly women who are affected by that issue, many of whom are the head of a single-parent household and they are affected by poverty more than other households.

The school meals programme is excellent. If possible we should look at widening it. It should not just be for DEIS schools. There are kids in non-DEIS schools who would also need that. I just wanted to raise the issue and I believe that we really need to keep a focus particularly on areas such as food poverty and childcare. These are really practical ways we can help families out of poverty. It is not good to have to say that in 2022 people in the State is relying on food banks. Perhaps there could be a little bit more joined-up thinking on these issues. I acknowledge that some of this falls to the Department of Education, with regard to school meals but it also falls to the Minister's Department.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The joined-up element is very important. The successor strategy to the Better Outcomes, Better Futures will have a significant child poverty focus within it. As a subset of this we will also have the EU child guarantee, which is guidance, support and some financial support coming from the European Union. The child guarantee and the actions we will take there will sit within the wider Better Outcomes, Better Futures work. That joined-up element is very important and this is why I am engaging very closely, in the first instance with the Minister of State, Deputy O'Brien, and then with the Ministers for Social Protection and Education and other Ministers.

The Deputy is correct regarding childcare. This is why we took steps in this year's budget with regard to the removal of the wraparound hours, which will have a major impact on children in the most disadvantaged areas. The Deputy and I, along with other Deputies, have had significant discussions on this since I came into this role. We have taken the major step whereby 5,000 children will benefit from not having the wraparound hours removed from their free childcare allocation from this spring. That is a major step forward.