Debate contribution: Emergency Food Parcels for Children

Debate contribution by Mr Colm Gildernew on 27 January 2025.

MLA

Mr Colm Gildernew

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

27 January 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Emergency Food Parcels for Children

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4758839

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I start by thanking Sian and the other Members who tabled today's motion. It is hard to imagine that, in 2025, there are still people without enough food to eat, but, unfortunately, that is the reality for so many families in our society. Food insecurity is defined as a lack of:

"regular access to enough safe and nutritious food for normal growth and development and an active and healthy life."

When a parent lacks the resources to obtain enough food for themselves and their family, they often face choices that no parent should be forced to make, such as choosing to skip a meal or reduce portion sizes so that others might have enough to eat. Research carried out by Trussell found that, over a 12-month period, one in six adults in the North had experienced some form of food insecurity, which is the highest level in recent times. Consequently, we have seen a huge rise in the number of people availing themselves of food banks, with a 143% increase in food bank usage over the past five years, including a 90% increase for children. I encourage the Minister to engage actively with Trussell, Barnardo's, the Cliff Edge Coalition and all of the groups that are so aware of the difficulties and, indeed, the solutions. While food banks are an important safety net in ensuring that people have enough to eat, their existence points to a failure of the economic and social security systems here to meet people's basic needs. It is our job as legislators to understand why so many people rely on food banks and to fix the problems at their root cause, which is poverty. The poverty and income inequality report published in March last year showed that roughly 18% of people in the North were living in relative poverty, which was up from 16% in the previous year. The figures pertaining to child poverty are even more concerning, with 24% of children living in relative poverty, which is up from 18% in the previous year. The COVID pandemic, together with the cost-of-living crisis, has had a major impact on the levels of poverty and deprivation in our society. The inflationary price increases on essential items such as food, fuel and electricity and other items such as car and home insurance, which have been driven partly by British Government policies, have pushed record numbers of people into financial hardship. The Good Friday Agreement gave a commitment that the Executive would produce an anti-poverty strategy to tackle the growing prevalence of poverty in our society. Unfortunately, 26 years on, we still wait for that strategy, and it is clear that the need has never been greater. While I welcome the work that has been done to date, there must be no further delay in the publication of that strategy. I once again call on the Minister for Communities to urgently publish the anti-poverty strategy. As a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I participated in the recent inquiry into child poverty, the findings of which were extremely stark.

Child poverty levels remain stubbornly high, with previous strategies failing to make any meaningful impact. Children living in poverty are more likely to have poorer outcomes in later life when it comes to physical and mental health, educational attainment and economic opportunities. Tory austerity, particularly policies such as the two-child limit, must shoulder much of the blame for where we are today with child poverty.

The anti-poverty strategy must be accompanied by a comprehensive and fully costed implementation plan with clear targets and outcomes to reduce poverty across our society, particularly among children. It must focus on fixing the root causes of poverty, including low income, educational attainment, disability, gender, ethnicity and addiction. Finally, it must also contain achievable targets and outcomes that are quantitative, qualitative and time-bound to properly measure performance and demonstrate and track the impact of strategic actions. I am happy to support the motion, and I look forward to the debate in the House today.

669 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:46 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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