Written answers

Thursday, 9 February 2006

Department of Social and Family Affairs

Anti-Poverty Strategy

5:00 pm

Photo of Damien EnglishDamien English (Meath, Fine Gael)
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Question 27: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs his views on whether NAPS has lived up to its potential as an instrument to identify and remove, in a systematic way, barriers to people trying to break out of social exclusion into full participation in society; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4656/06]

Photo of Séamus BrennanSéamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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It is now generally recognised that the causes and effects of poverty and social exclusion are multifaceted. These require a strategic, integrated, multi-policy response for application at national, regional and local levels with the overall aim of progressively achieving social inclusion. Consultation with all the relevant stakeholders is an integral part of the process.

The Government began this type of strategic process in 1997 with the first national anti-poverty strategy, NAPS. Following the meeting of the European Council in Lisbon in 2000, the EU embarked on a similar process through the open method of co-ordination. Member states made a commitment to produce at regular intervals national action plans against poverty and social exclusion, NAPs/inclusion. These set down their strategies to meet commonly agreed objectives and the measures to implement the strategies over the period of the plans. The main aim of the process is to make a decisive impact on poverty EU-wide by 2010.

The national anti-poverty strategy has now been combined with EU process, which involves broadly the same approach and seeks the same outcomes in terms of progressively reducing and ultimately eradicating poverty and social exclusion.

The Deputy will be aware that Ireland has produced two NAPs/inclusion covering the periods 2001-2003 and 2003-2005, respectively. The next NAP/inclusion, delayed by a year to accommodate participation by the ten new member states, is scheduled to be submitted by September 2006. This will form part of a new streamlined process, which will also include strategies on pensions, and on health and long-term care.

The strategic approach has, over almost ten years, become embedded in the policy making and policy development process. The strategies have helped identify the barriers that may prevent people breaking out of poverty and social exclusion largely using an evidence based approach. The measures required to systematically overcome these barriers and to promote the achievement of social inclusion, incorporating clear objectives and targets, are set down in the plans.

As Minister for Social and Family Affairs, I have lead responsibility for driving this process, working closely with my ministerial colleagues through the Cabinet Committee on Social Inclusion. Strong institutional structures are in place to underpin the process, including structures to facilitate consultation with the social partners, involving the community and voluntary sector. The Office for Social Inclusion, OSI, in my Department co-ordinates the process at official level. The plans and the reports on their implementation are submitted for evaluation to the EU Commission and are also considered by other member states through a process of peer review. The EU has acknowledged that the strategic process in Ireland is well developed, but inevitably points to areas to which priority for action needs to be given in future plans.

The multifaceted nature of the process promotes greater co-ordination among Departments and agencies in meeting more effectively, in an integrated way, the needs of those who are poor and socially excluded. The exchanges, under the open method of co-ordination, of knowledge, experience, expertise and best practice between member states in relation to the common challenges we face in tackling poverty and social exclusion also greatly assist with policy development and implementation.

The commonly agreed indicators enable countries to determine the progress being made in achieving better outcomes and how such progress compares with that of other countries. The degree to which progress can be made is for all countries constrained by the need to maintain economic competitiveness and growth which are the basic motors for ending poverty and creating a socially inclusive society. However, the process also shows that effective social policies have positive economic effects, particularly in supporting vulnerable people in obtaining the education, skills and opportunities to obtain employment, and the independence and self-sufficiency it confers. Failure to reduce and ultimately eradicate poverty can impose a serious burden on a country's economic capacity, in addition to the social costs and real suffering for so many.

The strategic process being implemented through successive NAPs/inclusion is, therefore, at the very core of this Government's social and economic policies.

The current NAP/inclusion contains a series of commitments across relevant policy areas, including targets to increase participation in employment, to improve levels of educational attainment and to improve access to services and good quality housing. A review of implementation of the plan was undertaken in June 2005 and found that some 51 of its 58 targets and commitments had either been met or were in the process of being met.

EU member states are due to submit the next round of NAPs/inclusion, covering the two year period from 2006 to 2008, to the EU in September 2006. In September last year, OSI embarked on an extensive consultation process with stakeholders, including people who are experiencing poverty and social exclusion and those who work to support them directly or indirectly, in an effort to avail at first hand of their knowledge, experience and expertise. This consultation process will culminate with the Social Inclusion Forum which is to be held on 15 February.

Since 1997 when this strategic process commenced, we have achieved unprecedented levels of economic growth and improvements across the board in our living standards. The greatest social as well as economic achievement of this period has been the huge level of job creation. Employment creation affords the main route out of poverty and social exclusion and, in particular, it has halted and reversed involuntary emigration, which for so long in Ireland has been one of the more tragic and enduring forms of social exclusion. A combination of sound economic and active social policies based on social partnership have been the basis of this success, to which many other countries now look for guidance in meeting the same type of challenges.

Our task now is to prepare the next action plan that will address, as a priority, the needs of those who have not been as successful in benefiting from our economic boom of recent years. This will involve removing barriers, especially to employment, that may have impeded them in the past and giving them the supports they need to achieve social inclusion in the Ireland of today.

I have a strong commitment to ensuring social inclusion will be achieved for the many who still remain vulnerable in our society. The Government is fully committed to taking the necessary measures, within the economic constraints, to provide for the necessary measures in the next NAP/inclusion.

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