Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent)
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892. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if her Department will continue to support the annual Social Inclusion Forum as an important means of promoting engagement between persons experiencing poverty and exclusion, the community and voluntary sector and Government; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32990/20]

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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The Social Inclusion Forum (SIF) was established by the Government in 2002, as part of the National Anti-Poverty Strategy institutional structures, and has continued to be part of the monitoring and evaluation structure of successive strategies, including the recently published Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025: Ambition, Goals, Commitments. The aim of the Forum is to give people who are directly affected by poverty and social exclusion, and those who work with them, a voice in the development of the policies that directly affect them, and in the ways that policies are implemented.

The new Programme for Government contains a clear statement that the Government will continue to support the annual Social Inclusion Forum as an important means of promoting engagement between people experiencing poverty and exclusion, the community and voluntary sector and Government. I fully support this commitment and understand the continued importance and relevance of the forum, most particularly during difficult times such as those we are facing now.

The next Social Inclusion Forum will be organised jointly by the Department of Social Protection and the Department of Rural and Community Development, for the first time, reflecting the strong working relationship between the two Departments and the complementary nature of their policies. Planning for this event is underway and it is intended to hold this forum early in 2021. Depending on the level of public health restrictions arising from COVID 19 pandemic in place at the time the Forum is held, this Forum will be held remotely if necessary.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.