Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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920. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if her attention has been drawn to the fact that an organisation (details supplied) has stated that its services currently show an anticipated 57% increase in need from families seeking help with food support; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [33324/20]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD) supports the actions of EU member states to provide material/food assistance to the most deprived. Funding of €3.8 billion is available via the fund between 2014 and 2020 across the EU. Each member state has to match this with a minimum of 15% national funding. The total value of the fund in Ireland for the period 2014 to 2020 is €26.7m, €4m of which will come from the Irish exchequer.

As the Managing Authority (MA) for the Operational Programme, my Department has responsibility for the implementation of the programme in Ireland. 75% of available resources will be applied to the provision of food and 25% to the provision of basic material assistance. In 2019, over 195,000 people received food assistance through the fund, including almost 70,000 children. To date the expenditure on the provision of food aid is almost €16m, with €4.5m of this expenditure in 2020 which is an increase of 16% on 2019.

FoodCloud is the department's primary partner organisation and they deliver the food element of the FEAD programme. FoodCloud manages the procurement and storage of the 23 stapled dried FEAD food products and coordinates the collection of the products by the other partner organisations which are the local charities. There are over 150 charities approved as partner organisations across the country and over 4,000 tonnes of food has been distributed to communities through these charities since the programme commenced in late 2016. Barnardos is an approved partner organisation.

The FEAD Managing Authority and Foodcloud are monitoring the demand for food aid since the outbreak of Covid–19. Following requests for additional food from 50 charities, including 8 of the 19 Barnardos services, additional allocations were made available to these charities.

Any charity requiring an additional food allocation to meet increased demand can contact the FEAD team within my department.

I trust this clarifies the position for you.