Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I sincerely thank Senators Ruane, Higgins, Black and Flynn for creating the opportunity to discuss the reality of poverty. One of the challenges in tackling poverty is that it is simply not spoken about often enough in public and political discourse. I get relatively few parliamentary questions on it though it is one of the Government's most important areas of action. I am genuinely interested in hearing different perspectives and constructive suggestions on how we might tackle poverty and hope there is a way we can continue this conversation after this debate as the format that constrains us may limit our scope to have some over and back discussion. As Minister of State with responsibility for the roadmap for social inclusion in the Department of Social Protection, I have a particular interest in the issue at hand but it also very much crosses into my community development responsibilities in the Department of Rural and Community Development.

With regard to the motion before us today, I will respond by setting out the work that is ongoing to address the issues the Senators have raised. Debates about poverty can get weighed down by statistics but it is important to look at some objective measures. The key measure that I look at since I started this job is the consistent poverty rate. The target for 2025 is 2% or less. That target has never been reached before and it was set pre-Covid, pre-Ukraine crisis and pre-cost-of-living crisis. Nevertheless it is crucial we stay focused on that 2% target.

The latest Central Statistics Office, CSO, survey on income and living conditions, SILC, data for 2021 show a reduction in the consistent poverty rate in Ireland from 4.7% in 2020 to 4% in 2021. This latest reduction continues a trend that has seen the consistent poverty rate fall in each of the last six years. Ireland’s system of social transfers consistently performs as one of the most effective in the EU in reducing both poverty and income inequality.

After social transfers, Ireland’s at-risk-of-poverty rate and its Gini coefficient, which is a measure of income inequality, are both below the EU average and are continuing their downward trend. The 2021 in-work-at-risk-of-poverty rate in Ireland is also less than half the EU average. That is not to say for one moment that the situation is anything but unacceptable. While the overall consistent poverty rate is the key indicator, it can mask the reality faced by those groups that face much higher than average rates of consistent poverty. The Senators' motion speaks to this point when they reference the much higher rates faced by people with disabilities, one-parent families, children and Travellers.

We have carried out research in recent years to guide us on the most effective social welfare payments to address poverty rates. Underscoring all of this is the fact that we have - as the motion calls us to do - continued to support and resource ongoing independent research based on the minimum essential standard of living, MESL. This is the target we need to hit and we directly support the Vincentian MESL Research Centre.

Last year I asked the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, to examine what payments and what levels of investment in particular payments are most effective is helping us to reduce the consistent poverty rate. I would draw Senators' attention to it as it really lays out some practical steps that the Government can take to hit our poverty targets.

The working family payment was one of the payments identified as being most effective at reducing poverty and it was that research finding that assisted me in pushing for a €40 increase in its thresholds and the working-family-payment lump sum in the recent budget. All three budgets of this Government have been heavily informed by research. That is why increases in qualified child payments, one-parent family income disregards and living alone and fuel allowances were prioritised in the budgets of 2020 to 2022. I would certainly have wished to see higher increases in various payment rates. However, the most recent budget was about trying to find a balance between many legitimate demands. Despite these challenges, we managed to secure the biggest social welfare budget in the history of the State.

I welcome the post-budget analysis by the ESRI that shows that budget 2023 measures, including the one-off cost of living measures introduced as part of the budget, will substantially cushion real incomes against the rise in the cost of living and that people on low incomes will be slightly better off compared to a budget adjusted purely for inflation.

The motion makes particular reference to poverty levels among single-parent households. As a result of budget 2023, families with children, including single parents, can benefit from a range of measures which I will not list because I will not get it all in timewise. The budget 2023 expenditure report published on budget day notes that a lone-parent household stands to receive a €1,872 increase in support as a consequence of the measures brought in.

The motion further calls on the Government to re-establish the Combat Poverty Agency, which was moved to the Department of Social Protection and asserts that in its absence, Government policies have not been adequately poverty proofed. I commend the work carried out by the Combat Poverty Agency and its staff during its existence. The agency provided a very valuable service.

At the time of its establishment, relatively little was known about incomes, poverty and deprivation in Ireland. The agency was forefront in developing our knowledge of the drivers of poverty, understanding who experiences poverty and deprivation and reporting on progress. I recall getting the regular combat poverty magazines.

However, it is not wholly correct to say that the functions of the Combat Poverty Agency were discontinued as much of the work continues under a new social inclusion division that was created within the Department of Social Protection for which I hold ministerial responsibility. The incorporation of the unit within the Department not only means that it has direct line of sight to a responsible Minister but it also enables anti-poverty initiatives to be mainstreamed across the Government.

It has also led directly to poverty impact assessments being formally incorporated into the work of the Departments of Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform and Social Protection. The incorporation of the unit within the Department also means that detailed poverty impact and distributional assessments are completed and published prior to and following budget day, which would not have been possible if the unit was a separate agency. This has increased our capacity to make informed evidence-based policy.

The roadmap for social inclusion has the ambitious target to reduce the percentage of the population in consistent poverty to 2% or less by 2025. The roadmap translates this ambition into 66 unique commitments that are assigned across relevant Departments and its implementation is overseen by a steering group, which I chair. The inclusion of senior officials means that poverty and social inclusion initiatives remain on the agenda of the management boards across Departments, while the community and voluntary sector representatives on the board provide an invaluable external perspective on progress and priorities.

The steering group oversees the annual progress reports on the implementation of roadmap commitments. The motion before us today calls for the publication of the second progress report and I am pleased to be able to announce that the progress report and accompanying report card have, following consideration by Government earlier this week, been published this afternoon.

The motion calls for the development of a successor to the roadmap for the period 2025 to 2030. I can assure Senators that a new strategy will be developed to succeed the current roadmap. An independent mid-term review of the roadmap is under way.

With regard to the call in today’s motion to develop specific strategies, on foot of a specific commitment under the roadmap, I established and chair a food poverty working group comprising officials from relevant Departments and representatives of the community and voluntary sector. This group published a mapping exercise in July on work across the Government to address food poverty and has commissioned independent research on the drivers of food poverty, which I hope to publish in quarter 1 next year.

I also secured funding under budget 2023 to launch a new programme that will engage directly with people experiencing food poverty and identify and address the individual and related policy issues. These activities are all being administered by the social inclusion division in the Department of Social Protection, which has amalgamated the functions of the Combat Poverty Agency.

In addition to the roadmap steering group and food poverty working group, my Department continues to engage with a broad range of stakeholders on matters related to poverty and social inclusion across a wide range of forums. The annual social inclusion forum is one such event that I was pleased to host in June this year, which brings together policy makers, service providers and service users from across Departments, NGOs, community and voluntary sector groups and representatives of people experiencing poverty to discuss and debate national policy on poverty reduction and social inclusion. Independent research and analysis on poverty continues to be commissioned and funded by the Department of Social Protection through our research partnership with the ESRI and various procurement contracts.

There is a particular phrase from the Senators' motion that I wish to draw upon and which states "as well as short term actions to meet immediate need, long-term, planned and sustained investment in people and public services will be required to address the deep-rooted structural causes of poverty and deprivation, especially intergenerationally". There is a lot in that sentence. I agree with it and in many ways we could have today's debate on that sentence alone. However I will unpack it a little in terms of some current relevant Government actions. The roadmap is predicated on two basic pillars, which are improved incomes and improved public services.

First, I have spoken a bit about improved incomes via social welfare but, of course, employment is a key way improving incomes as well. We have a situation at the moment of low unemployment where jobs are available and there are plenty of vacancies but significant groups of people are not accessing these jobs. It really lays bare the reality of the barriers that some groups of people face in trying to get a job in Ireland. People with disabilities and Travellers are two such groups that come to mind. I do not have the time to go into some of the work that I am doing at the moment to try to bridge the gap between Travellers and the labour market. I am looking at whatever levers I have available to me help address the structural barriers facing Travellers seeking employment, which has led to an unacceptably high unemployment rate for Travellers.

Second, there are quite a few commitments in the roadmap related to improving access to public services but the current cost of living crisis has shown us the potential for going further in making public services more accessible and less monetised.Budget 2023 includes a number of important measures, such as the abolition of all inpatient hospital charges, a 25% reduction in childcare costs, free contraception, free school books and reduced public transport fares. Many of these are not in the roadmap but they speak to the principle of better and more accessible public services. There is scope for similar measures to be included in the next roadmap.

The motion refers to the need to address "the deep-rooted structural causes of poverty and deprivation, especially intergenerationally". On Monday last, UN Day for the Eradication of Poverty, the Department of Rural and Community Development launched a research report on intergenerational poverty funded by Pobal and the ESRI. The report stresses that policy interventions are needed to address childhood poverty, not just because of the immediate impact on children living in poverty but also because of longer-term negative implications. Education came up in that report and DEIS was also mentioned. Significant increases in DEIS funding and a refining of how it targets schools have happened in the past year. It is very important that DEIS reaches those most in need. Last week I met representatives of a Limerick Travellers group in Southhill. The women I met gave numerous examples of children who had moved from primary to secondary school who still could not read or write. DEIS is a good thing but it needs to have better reach.

In the context of the phrase "deep-rooted structural causes of poverty", I want to mention the issue of discrimination. Whether on grounds of disability, family status, racism or sexual orientation, discrimination can have a sealing effect around people and communities that blocks off or limits routes out of poverty. This is particularly relevant to today’s debate when we speak of discrimination on the grounds of socioeconomic status. In many circumstances, it is not just the material reality of people's situation that is limiting them, it can also be wider society’s perception of them because they come from a particular area. This is particularly damaging for children and young people who can grow up internalising this wider discriminatory view. My colleague, the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O’Gorman, is in the process of reviewing our equality legislation and exploring the possibility of adding socioeconomic status as an additional ground for discrimination in the Equality Acts.

The final issue I want to touch on is area-concentrated poverty. I refer here to geographical areas, often quite small, that have not been well served in terms of public services or that might have higher than average levels of unemployment, for example. This is an area I am putting increasing focus on in my role in the Department of Rural and Community Development. The Government’s main social inclusion tool at a community level across the country is the social inclusion and community activation programme, SICAP, under which approximately 600 community workers are employed around the country by local development companies to work with disadvantaged communities at a one-to-one level but also to help build the capacity of community groups. Last year I worked hard to get SICAP its largest budget increase ever of 10% and this is having a real impact on the ground. Later this week I will announce the new funding model for the community services programme, CSP. The new model will give increased funding to those CSP projects that are operating in areas of disadvantage where the capacity to generate their own income is more limited than others.

Last year I launched the new community development programme which saw seven projects begin that were led by Travellers, people with disabilities, Roma and others. I hope to grow this programme next year. Earlier this year I launched the empowering communities programme, which identified 14 of the most disadvantaged small areas across the country. Community workers have started working with these communities to support them to develop their own programme of work and actions on the issues the communities themselves see as priorities. I mention these initiatives in the context of a debate about poverty as it is crucial that we recognise the fact that people experiencing poverty have the answers. They have agency and it is important that we support individuals and communities to develop and implement their own solutions to area-concentrated poverty and its implications. The place-based leadership programme that we are funding in Darndale and Drogheda deserves a special mention in this regard and is another programme that I plan to grow next year.

As Minister of State with responsibility for the implementation of roadmap commitments, I am committed to reducing poverty and bringing about real change during the lifetime of the roadmap. I warmly welcome the focus of this evening’s discussion and I look forward to listening to the remaining contributions from all sides.