Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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7. To ask the Taoiseach to report on the published third meeting of the cross-government network on child poverty and well-being. [23997/24]

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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8. To ask the Taoiseach to report on the published third meeting of the cross-government network on child poverty and well-being. [24002/24]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 7 and 8 together.

This Government established the child poverty and well-being programme in the Department of the Taoiseach to make sure we prioritise children, and particularly vulnerable children, and to make sure they get a real chance to realise their potential. From Poverty to Potential: A Programme Plan for Child Well-being 2023-2025 was published last year. It is the initial programme plan for the child poverty and well-being programme office in my Department. The programme plan does not address everything but rather takes a focused approached on six key areas that have the potential to bring about significant change for children and their families. These include income supports and joblessness; early learning and childcare; reducing the cost of education; family homelessness; consolidating and integrating public health, family and parental assistance, and well-being services; and enhancing participation in culture, arts and sport for children and young people affected by poverty.

The role of the Department of the Taoiseach is to co-ordinate and focus Government action. To help facilitate this, the office has established a cross-government network on child poverty and well-being. Three network meetings have taken place to date. The purpose of the cross-government network is to bring together the very wide range of actors across Departments, their agencies and local authorities who are responsible for implementing actions and policies which impact on the objective to end child poverty and enhance child well-being. The network creates a platform to support this diverse work and identify shared purpose and mission and meets three to four times per year. Information about the network and its meetings is published on gov.ie.

On 27 February, the third meeting of the network addressed the theme: achieving a continuum of care: exploring effective strategies for enhancing service integration. The objective of the discussion was to support policymakers and service providers to share learning and think creatively about the challenges and benefits of integrated services. Integrated services is one of the key focus areas of the programme office. The overall ambition for integrated services is to identify and create pathways for children and families to smoothly access the services they need.

A keynote address exploring effective strategies for enhancing service integration was delivered by Dr. Carmel Devaney, associate director of the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre at the University of Galway, and a practice panel looked at the evidence, legitimacy and feasibility of service integration in practice. Panel members were from a wide range of organisations, including representatives from Meitheal, a family resource centre, and a children and young persons' services committee.

Reflections from this cross-government network meeting and the inaugural child poverty and well-being summit, which I attended, inform the ongoing work of the programme office. I believe we can absolutely transform the lives of children and their families, and we must give every child the best possible start in life. Achieving this is not just the right thing to do for children but it is also essential for protecting social cohesion, empowering vibrant communities and securing our long-term economic future.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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It is all very well setting up a committee to deal with child poverty and welfare but it has to do something. The Taoiseach said he wants to give children the best start in life - absolutely. One of things that guarantees they do not have a good start in life is if they are homeless or they are facing the prospect of being homeless. A total of 4,170 children are in emergency accommodation, and the situation is getting worse every month. The Taoiseach needs to address that and to recognise that his Government has so far failed to do so. It has worsened every month.

I want to just point him to a few things that could help. First, we do not have enough three- or four-bedroom houses being bought or built by local authorities. In the new Part V private development that is coming up in Shanganagh as opposed to the Land Development Agency development, all of the units that are being bought are only one- or two-bedroom apartments, even though there are loads of three- and four-bedroom apartments. When we are talking about kids, they generally have three- our four-bed needs.

Housing needs assessment does not take into account families that are on RAS and HAP transfer lists but many of them are families with children. When people are facing the possibility of eviction, they cannot get the higher rate of homeless HAP until eight weeks before they are facing eviction. Even though many people know months in advance they are facing the prospect of being homeless, local housing authorities will not do anything for them until they are eight weeks out. Even then, they will basically say to them to wait until they are homeless and then knock on their door, by which time the kids are thrown into homelessness. That has to stop. There has to be a proactive and preventative approach to kids or anybody, but especially kids and families, going into homelessness. At the moment, that is not what is happening. It is a bureaucratic approach and it is not prioritising children and families.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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The minimum essential standard of living report was published today and it is pretty damning. It shows that social welfare is lagging behind basic needs. In more than three quarters of the cases at which the report looked, people had an inadequate income. In 43% of cases, people had a deeply inadequate income. It found that the costs of a minimum essential standard of living, that is, the very basics one needs to have the basics of a decent life, have gone up by nearly 17% since 2020. Food has gone up by more than 20% and energy costs are up by more than 60%. The costs of babies has gone up the most; the price of baby formula is up 37% and the price of nappies has nearly doubled over that period of time.

The report states that the small increases the Government has introduced in social welfare, including the one-off payments, have not compensated for that. They have not meant people have kept step with achieving a minimum essential standard of living. It found a two-parent family with two kids, one of whom is in primary school and the other in secondary school, is being left €96 per week short of a minimum essential standard of living. This is a political choice. We have a €65 billion surplus. Will the Taoiseach make a different political choice in the coming budget to say that no one will be left below the minimum needed for a basic, decent quality of life?

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I wish to ask once again about enhanced family supports, which are absolutely necessary for those children and families who are the most marginalised and, at times, the most chaotic. We have all seen programmes that have worked in recent years but sometimes the resources get spread too thin and they do not have the impact. We have seen they can do huge things in saving kids and families from what can be incredibly difficult lives. They can save many people from the criminal justice system and they can save a lot of State resources, such as those nuclear options that are needed later. Recently, I have been dealing with an even greater number of families and communities who are being impacted by chaotic families in their own areas. We do not have the necessary supports, whether we are talking about the Garda, Tusla and support services, or the powers that council need to deal with this. We need a review of these circumstances. If we could put in enhanced family supports early, we could probably save ourselves from a lot of these issues. They are needed at both ends.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputies for raising these issues. On child homelessness, we have a real need to do more. The point Deputy Boyd Barrett made about three-bedroom and four-bedroom houses is interesting because - and this is the challenge with a housing crisis in general - I often meet people in my constituency who are always looking for a one-bedroom house. If we are being honest and truthful, this is what happens when there is a deficit of social housing when we are playing catch-up, although last year we seen the largest number of social homes provided since the 1970s. I take the point about three and four-bedroom houses and I will scratch the surface on that a bit more.

As for the Deputy's point about when people can access the higher rate of HAP and why they have to wait until they are nearly at the cliff edge before being able to access it, I have passed that onto the Department of housing on a few occasions. The Deputy's point sounds logical in that regard and I will purse it again with the Department of housing. I raised it with the Department after the Deputy raised it with me here previously. I will take away the suggestions that I accept he is making in good faith.

As to Deputy Murphy's point on the minimum essential standard of living report, which was published today, truthfully, I have not yet read it, but I will. We want to make child poverty a priority. There is no one in Ireland who wishes to see a child in poverty. There is no one in this House, regardless of political ideology, who wants that. I accept there are political choices to be made. One of the political choices to be made is universal versus targeted measures. I discussed this at the child poverty and well-being summit at Dublin Castle recently. There is absolutely a benefit to doing universal things as there are certain things we all want to be universally provided for all children in Ireland. The free schoolbooks scheme and the expansion of the hot schools meals programme are examples of that. I have to be honest that there is also a need to do more on the targeted side. I listened to people such as the Children's Rights Alliance on this issue recently and they talk a lot of sense. As we approach the next budget, child poverty will be a priority but we are going to have to make very targeted decisions because we need to bring all children to that equal starting place in their lives. I am proud of a number of things the Government has done in this area. I could list them but I will not in the interest of time. There is a need to look at more targeted measures for children in particular need.

Deputy Ó Murchú's point is a similar one in the context of those wrap-around, enhanced supports we need in communities. I hope, as the community safety partnerships develop and roll out, that they do not just become discussions about criminal justice issues. They are not mean to be in terms of their membership. We are trying to have a conversation about what can be done to create a better and safer - in every sense of the word - communities. That is why it is important the likes of family resource centres and others are plugged into that discussion.