Written answers
Wednesday, 2 April 2025
Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection
Departmental Strategies
Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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186. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection for an update on whether the poverty reduction target contained in the roadmap for social inclusion was, or will be, achieved; if a new poverty reduction strategy will be developed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16323/25]
Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025, is a whole of government strategy with a five-year timeframe which aims to reduce consistent poverty to 2% or less and to make Ireland one of the most socially inclusive countries in the EU.
The Roadmap for Social Inclusion is an overarching statement of Government strategy, which acknowledges the range of sectoral plans already in place that have social inclusion as a core objective, in areas such as education, health, children and childcare, community development and housing.
The Roadmap originally contained 69 commitments across seven strands of action. This increased to 81 commitments following the mid-term review of the Roadmap which was published in June 2023. The commitments were developed with relevant Departments and agencies to reflect current or planned sectoral strategies and plans.
Progress on achieving the ambition of the Roadmap and its commitments have been reported in annual Progress Reports and Report Cards, which are available on gov.ie.
At the end of 2024:
- 59 commitments were fully achieved or achieved with ongoing delivery;
- 3 further commitments were in progress on schedule with ongoing delivery; and
- 19 commitments were in progress.
While the latest data is disappointing, it is important to recognise that SILC 2024 refers to income in the 2023 calendar year and therefore does not reflect the Government’s full response to poverty in recent years. The significant welfare increases in Budgets 2024 and 2025 and associated cost-of-living measures delivered last year are not reflected in the most recent results.
It takes time to see the impact of our work in the data, and that is why we are also determined to keep making progress, even if that is not always immediately reflective in the statistics.
As the current Roadmap for Social Inclusion is due to end at the end of 2025 officials in my Department have commenced work on the development of a successor strategy. A full public consultation will launch on the development of the new strategy in the near future.
The SILC data further highlights the importance of employment, in lifting households out of poverty, and officials in my Department are working on the development of a new national employment services strategy to succeed the current Pathways to Work 2021-2025 strategy.
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