Results 21-40 of 13,004 for speaker:Louise O'Reilly

Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development: Child Poverty: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Louise O'Reilly: Households.

Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development: Child Poverty: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Louise O'Reilly: The day of households is decades behind us now. We have people - kids - living two or three years in emergency accommodation or locked up in hotel rooms. I appreciate and understand what Mr. Egan is saying. I fully get that he does not set policy. However, it does strike me that 20-odd years on from the first child sleeping in emergency accommodation, the Department has had plenty of time...

Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development: Child Poverty: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Louise O'Reilly: I will make one point, although the Deputy concerned has gone. I think he was trying to make some kind of a connection between children in poverty and parents in addiction. According to the Health Research Board, “In areas that are most and least deprived there is little difference in the prevalence of drug use", although there is obviously a disproportionate impact on those poorer...

Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development: Child Poverty: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Louise O'Reilly: Okay.

Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development: Child Poverty: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Louise O'Reilly: I understand that. I am just referring to the leadership that could be provided by the Department, because this issue does cut across a number of Departments. Mr. Hession will know himself that sometimes when everybody is responsible, nobody is responsible. It is just about bringing them together and ensuring there is consistency. This is important, particularly when this is being used to...

Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development: Child Poverty: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Louise O'Reilly: That is right.

Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development: Child Poverty: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Louise O'Reilly: I might correspond with Mr. Hession on this matter.

Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development: Child Poverty: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Louise O'Reilly: I thank the witnesses for the work they do. It goes without saying, but sometimes we do not say it. We just had the Department in, when I asked a question in relation to capturing actual levels of poverty and deprivation. Will the witnesses comment on the exclusion of people who are not in a household? There are 5,000 children or more not in a household. Those are the ones in emergency...

Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development: Child Poverty: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Louise O'Reilly: They are for either Dr. O'Connor or Ms Bayliss, or both.

Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development: Child Poverty: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Louise O'Reilly: That is interesting.

Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development: Child Poverty: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Louise O'Reilly: Unfortunately, it is very expensive to be homeless.

Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development: Child Poverty: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Louise O'Reilly: If they are not measured, it is easy to exclude them. There are 5,000 kids who are not part of that measurement. It strikes me that they will always be left behind if they are not included.

Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development: Child Poverty: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Louise O'Reilly: I understand. That is a point very well made. On the issue of the inclusion or exclusion of housing costs in the calculations, the Government is going to set a target and work towards it. On the Government side, there is obviously an acceptable level of child poverty. Given that rents are rising at a faster rate than anything else that has to be purchased, should the Department be...

Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development: Child Poverty: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Louise O'Reilly: We could include housing costs as part of consistent poverty because it is.

Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development: Child Poverty: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Louise O'Reilly: Absolutely. On the topic of disability, we had a motion on the cost of disability last night in the Dáil. We had a very good discussion. The motion was not opposed by the Government, but neither did the Government support it. That is up to the Government. By any reasonable calculation, the Disability Federation of Ireland, DFI, and other organisations are telling us that persons...

Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development: Child Poverty: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Louise O'Reilly: I thank the Chair and the witnesses for their time. In 2018, Leo Varadkar launched a child poverty strategy with a package of measures, he said, to tackle early childhood poverty. That was a ten-year strategy to take us up to 2028, so we are not there yet. There was another cross-departmental group in 2023, and there is another one now in 2025. It is getting a bit difficult to have faith...

Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development: Child Poverty: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Louise O'Reilly: We are all better off when everyone can live a decent life.

Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development: Child Poverty: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Louise O'Reilly: I am aware of it, yes.

Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development: Child Poverty: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Louise O'Reilly: They accidentally got an extra euro. I have a question about child maintenance. There are different disregards across local authorities for the calculation of child maintenance. I have already discussed this with the Department and the Minister. To be fair to him, his Department does not include it but should that be universal? Does it cause issues? From my read, it is not consistent...

Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development: Child Poverty: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Louise O'Reilly: That is a point very well made. The will was there to include it in a press release.