Introduction

Many findings from the quantitative and qualitative data on food poverty set out in this book are linked to or have implications for the policies and practices of government, employers and other relevant stakeholders. Drawing on the relevant literature and key findings from primary and secondary data analysis, this chapter discusses the most prominent of these issues. These include problems regarding social protection, housing, illness/disability, caring, low-pay and precarious employment. In particular, it highlights issues which, if addressed, may elucidate pathways out of food poverty. The conclusion summarises the key policy implications.

Inadequate social protection

Income protection

Most food bank users in this study were reliant on social protection. A key theme that emerged from respondents was the inadequacy of welfare support. In Ireland, social transfers play an important role in reducing poverty (Watson and Maître, 2013), but levels of deprivation during the last recession were likely to have been exacerbated by cuts to social welfare benefits, including Child Benefit and Jobseeker’s payments (Murphy, 2012). In relative terms, social transfers may have helped significantly to reduce poverty, but a closer review indicates that social welfare support has been inadequate, particularly for some household types. Research on welfare support levels in Ireland across a range of households demonstrated that, apart from pensioners, it does not provide an adequate income for the MESL (MacMahon et al, 2017). This ties in with OECD data for 2012 which indicated that, except for one-earner married households, with or without children, Ireland had replacement rates below the EU and OECD median values (Nevin Economic Research Institute [NERI], 2014: 94). Watson et al (2016) revealed that during the recession Ireland was the least effective EU member state, together with the UK, at safeguarding the living standards of vulnerable groups. For example, the gap in persistent deprivation levels, measured over two years between lone parents and other adults aged 30 to 65 years, increased by 12 per cent from 2005 to 2014.

Two groups which stood out as having a high prevalence of food poverty were lone parents and those with an illness or disability.