Free hot meals should be extended to early childcare settings, Minister says

Free hot meals expanded to early childcare settings, meals-on-wheels programmes ramped up and significant increases in welfare payments targeted at children are among measures Minister for Social Inclusion Joe O’Brien wants to tackle increasing food poverty.

He will publish a “high level mapping” report on food poverty on Monday showing five government departments already spend €400 million a year mitigating the worst impacts of food poverty. They could, however, be “doing more”, he says, on an increasingly serious social problem.

Food poverty will “damage” the poorest children “a lot more” than any other cohort in society without urgent action, he says.

“Two departments stand out – health and agriculture – and I will be writing to those Ministers in coming weeks telling them I think there is more they could do.”

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The report, Food Poverty: Government Programmes, Schemes and Supports, says departments spent €89 million last year directly on food poverty, and €400 million on “schemes that include a food poverty aspect”.

It says 8.9 per cent of the population (435,900) are in food poverty, with 6.2 per cent (316,000) in “severe food deprivation”. Food poverty is defined as “the inability to have an adequate and nutritious diet due to issues of affordability or accessibility”.

Foodcloud, the main distributor of food aid in the State, has seen an “increase in need for food support” this year, adding that hunger and inadequate nutrition are “disproportionately affecting families [with children]”.

The report was commissioned by across-departmental food poverty working group, which also includes relevant charities including Crosscare and the Children’s Rights Alliance, and was established by Mr O’Brien in April 2021.

A second piece of research, investigating the experience of food poverty in two communities – one urban and one rural – is expected by the end of the year.

“In the context of the cost-of-living crisis and the risks that poses especially to children in poverty, we all have to use everything we can to do more on food poverty,” says Mr O’Brien. “It can’t be just down to social protection.”

The Minister wants three initiatives in particular ramped up: the free hot meals programme operated by his department; the ‘food dudes’ healthy eating initiative operated by the Department of Agriculture in some primary schools; and Meals-on-Wheels targeting older people operated by the Department of Health with partners including Irish Rural Link.

“We just recently announced hot school meals will be offered to all Deis primary schools from September. The target should be every primary school. We have to prove the budget is spent well every year to prove its value [to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform] to get it increased year on year.

“It’s important we get a pilot going on providing hot meals in early-learning providers. There is an argument to go in that direction.. A lot of this is about early intervention and the impact you can have at an early age.”

He said Minister for Social Protection, Heather Humphries, was supportive.

However, poverty was “framed”, he said, whether as food or fuel or housing poverty “it’s an income issue”. He has called for double-digit rises in core welfare payments and wants greater increases in the working family payment and the qualified child payment.

“So that will be my priority – getting lifts in them in the budget. It is important with the remit that I have that I keep talking about those people that are not just falling below the poverty line in the last 12 months but have been for years, decades, even generations... It’s important people realise that what is happening right now in terms of the cost of living is going to damage those children a lot more than what any other sector of society is experiencing.”