Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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1743. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection to provide an update on progress in respect of fulfilling the Government’s commitment to Sustainable Development Goal 2 (ending food poverty by 2030). [43586/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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Reducing food poverty requires a unified effort from all Government Departments and civil society. This includes the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the Department of Health, as well as the agri-food sector and the hospitality, food and retail sectors.

Food poverty is a complex problem and people may require food aid due to a wide range of underlying issues, including – poverty, debt, health and addiction issues, housing and homelessness, utility bills and employment related issues.

The Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020 – 2025 is the overarching statement of Government strategy that aims to reduce the number of people in consistent poverty in Ireland and increase social inclusion. Goal 7 of the Roadmap is to ‘ensure that all people can live with confidence that they have access to good quality healthcare, housing, energy and food.’ One of its 81 commitments strives to ‘develop a comprehensive programme of work to further explore the drivers of food poverty and to identify mitigating actions.’

As a result, a Food Poverty Working Group was established in the Department of Social Protection in 2021 with representatives from a range of Government Departments and the community and voluntary sector. The group oversaw the development and publication of an Action Plan on Food Poverty, comprising of 21 actions that aim to tackle food poverty. In addition, a food poverty case worker programme was launched in September 2023 in Dublin, Cork and Limerick. My Department has also over recent years massively extended the Hot School Meals programme across primary schools.

As the Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025 is due to come to an end at the end of this year, officials in the Department of Social Protection have commenced work on the development of a successor strategy. A full public consultation on the development of the new strategy launched in April and ran until 30th June 2025. The submissions as well as my Department's annual Social Inclusion Forum and Pre-Budget Forum are important events to help frame priorities in the context of the forthcoming Budget and the development of the new Roadmap for Social Inclusion.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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1744. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection to provide an update on plans to reduce wealth and income disparity and inequality in Ireland; and to provide a progress report in the context of the Government’s overall commitments to Sustainable Development Goal 10, specifically the commitment to reduce inequality within countries. [43587/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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Ireland has one of the most progressive systems of tax and social transfers in the EU which redistributes income from the upper income deciles to those in the lower income deciles. This system has been very effective at reducing poverty and inequality levels in Ireland and is key to our progress relating to the UN Sustainable Development Goal 10.

Throughout the last number of years, social transfers performed strongly in reducing the at-risk-of-poverty rate in Ireland. Official poverty statistics are published annually by the Central Statistics Office from the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC).

The SILC statistics published by the CSO in March 2025 show an increase in the at risk of poverty rate from 11.7% in 2024, compared with 10.6% in 2023. If all social transfers were excluded from income, the at risk of poverty rate would have been as high as 34%. That represents a significant overall poverty reduction effect in the Irish social protection system.

The EU-SILC results for 2024 show that, before social transfers (excluding pensions), the at risk of poverty rate was 52.7% for Ireland compared to an EU average of 34.4%. This drops to 12.3% for Ireland, lower than the EU average of 16.2% despite the much higher at risk of poverty levels before social transfers. This reflects the progressive and targeted nature of social transfers in the Irish State.

This impact is also evident in data on inequality from the CSO which indicates that, using the Gini coefficient measure, social transfers contributed to a 40% reduction in income inequality in Ireland in 2024.

The Government as per the Programme for Government, Securing Ireland's Future, have recommitted to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The achievement of the commitments contained in the Programme for Government will protect welfare rates while ensuring that available supports are targeted at vulnerable groups. The achievement of these measures will reduce inequality in Ireland.