Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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The Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025is a whole-of-government strategy with the ambitious target to reduce consistent poverty to 2 per cent or less and to make Ireland one of the most socially inclusive countries in the EU. It includes a commitment to “develop a comprehensive programme of work to further explore the drivers of food poverty and to identify mitigating actions”.

In order to further progress this commitment, I secured funding under Budget 2023 to pilot a case worker service to work with people regularly accessing emergency food provision. Following a procurement process, the pilot programme commenced in September 2023 and is provided by organisations involved in emergency food provision in three regions of Ireland: Crosscare in Dublin, Feed Cork in Cork and Mid-West Simon in Limerick.

Food poverty is a complex problem and while food banks address an immediate need, by providing food packages to those experiencing food poverty, the underlying causes and issues need to be addressed for people to exit food poverty. This pilot programme will run for an 18-month period and aims to support at least 200 people in each location. My hope is that many of those supported will no longer need to access emergency food provision but, in addition, that we have a clear picture of the types of underlying issues and support required which will help inform future policy decisions.