Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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138. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection when the new roadmap for social inclusion will be published; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32905/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025: Ambitions, Goals and Commitments was published in January 2020. It is the successor to the National Action Plan for Social Inclusion which concluded at the end of 2017 and is the latest in a series of such plans dating back to 1997.The Roadmap for Social Inclusion builds on the work of its predecessors with the aim of reducing the number of people in consistent poverty in Ireland and increasing social inclusion for those who are most disadvantaged. This is reflected in its ambition 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. These plans remain key to ensuring that social inclusion is at the core of public policy and service strategy across all government departments and services.The theme for this year's Social Inclusion Forum in 2025 was looking towards the Government’s new Roadmap for Social Inclusion, which will be the national strategy to reduce poverty and improve social inclusion going forward. This year, the Forum included five workshops on key areas – building inclusive communities, families and children, supporting people with disabilities, supporting older people and Traveller and Roma – with facilitators from the community and voluntary sector, and presentations from expert practitioners.A public consultation for a successor strategy to the Roadmap for Social Inclusion was launched in April and runs until 30th June. Discussions at the Forum this year fed into the consultation for the Roadmap, which involved stakeholder engagement on the day. As the Department of Social Protection begins to develop the new social inclusion strategy, I want to hear the views of stakeholders and interested parties on the progress made in improving social inclusion and reducing poverty. I very much welcome comments, ideas and suggestions as to how these could be improved in the future and as to what issues might be included in the next strategy.The Department of Social Protection will prepare and publish a new successor strategy to the Roadmap for Social Inclusion in the first half of 2026.