David Cullinane (Sinn Fein)

I welcome Dr. Nada Dhaif to the Gallery and offer my party's support to the medics in Bahrain who are facing trial. I hope they will receive justice. I also concur with the sentiments expressed by Senator Darragh O'Brien and others on this issue.

I call for a debate on poverty, an issue Senator Ó Clochartaigh and I have raised on a number of occasions in recent months. The third anniversary of the abolition of the Combat Poverty Agency, an organisation which measured poverty and studied its root causes, will take place on 1 July. The agency did a great service to people who were suffering as a result of poverty.

A number of important reports have been published on poverty recently, including one by Focus Ireland which shows that approximately 5,000 people are homeless at any given time, 100,000 households are on social housing waiting lists and one in seven of those using homeless services are children. Another report entitled Understanding Childhood Deprivation in Ireland published by the ESRI found that in 2010, 8% of children were in consistent poverty, 30% of children lived in households which experienced some form of deprivation and one in five children had reported going to bed hungry. That is the reality faced by many children and families.

I concur with the comments made by Senators Hayden and Conway on another ESRI report which tracked low-income families and linked their earnings with potential social welfare payments. While I do not generally defend the ESRI, it is not the case that its report advocates that people should not work. We can disagree with the formula used in its calculations but I agree with the ESRI that many people are being driven into the hands of moneylenders. If we were to hold a debate on poverty, we would have to conclude that Government policy has consequences for individuals and families and budget decisions are driving more people into poverty and into the hands of moneylenders. We must ask why people are being forced to avail of the services of moneylenders in the first instance. The answer is that Government policy is emptying their pockets. Many low-income families are experiencing serious difficulties because their pay is so low. There is a genuine need for the House to have a debate on poverty. Given the abolition of the Combat Poverty Agency, the House could play a useful role in analysing the causes of poverty and proposing measures that could prevent people falling into poverty in the first instance.