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OVER 450,000 PEOPLE in Ireland cannot afford a basic meal every second day. This is a difficult fact to believe but one that was made all the more real to me during a recent visit to the Crosscare Food Bank in Dublin.
The centre collects surplus food products from producers and retailers and redistributes them to 50 charities in Dublin working with people living in poverty. It is leading the way in tackling food waste in Ireland by fostering partnerships with producers and large retailers and redistributing food to those who need it most. The Crosscare Food Bank, and others like it across the country, provide a lifeline to the people who visit their centres.
However, the European fund that supports the provision of food aid in Ireland and elsewhere across Europe for the last 25 years is due to end this month. This is the result of a 2011 European Court ruling that the EU does not have the right under the European treaties to use its budget to buy food for the most deprived. The case was taken by a small group of Member States (Ireland not included).
This decision caused uproar among NGOs all in Ireland and across Europe. How could Europe be seen to ‘abandon’ the most deprived, particularly at a time of rising poverty and social exclusion across Europe? How could the abolition of this fund be reconciled with the Europe 2020 strategy target to reducing the numbers at risk of poverty or social exclusion by at least 20 million by 2020?
Thankfully, and quite rightly, the European Commission proposed a replacement programme in October 2012. The proposal envisaged the continuation of EU support for the provision of food aid and but also its extension to support the provision of basic material assistance as well as social inclusion measures.
That was just the first step.
I was elected as the European Parliament’s Rapporteur for this proposed new EU Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD) in December 2012. The timetable was very tight; the programme had to be agreed by the end of 2013 so as to ensure no interruption in European support for NGOs. Furthermore, there was a blocking minority of Member States that were opposed in principle to the programme.
We pressed on, meeting with NGOs and charities across Europe to gather their views and drafting a report on the importance of the programme.
Despite opposing views from some members of the European Parliament - some sought to make the programme optional for Member States, others sought to narrow the scope to make it a food-only programme, while some sought to scrap the entire programme – agreement was reached in late November.
Among the elements that I successfully pushed for in negotiations was a guarantee that food banks, charities and civil society are fully consulted and involved in the design, operation and monitoring of national plans to implement FEAD. In addition, I worked to ensure that the administrative procedures for accessing FEAD are as simple as possible, and that there are synergies with FEAD and other EU priorities, such as reducing food waste – it is a scandal that 250,000 tonnes of good food is discarded each day across the EU – as well as promoting public health and sourcing local produce.
In addition to providing food aid, the FEAD programme will provide other basic living supports to deprived citizens, for example for ‘starter packs’ to be developed for people making the transition from homelessness to temporary or more permanent accommodation. Clothing and footwear for deprived children will also feature in the comprehensive programme to address extreme poverty within the EU.
Today the European Parliament’s Social Affairs Committee voted in favour of the new ‘Fund for European Aid for the Most Deprived’ (FEAD). It will now go to the European Parliament in February 2014 for final approval. The overwhelming vote in the Social Affairs Committee today signals the way for a strong endorsement of the final package.
While the fund is not and should not be seen as a substitute for the policies and actions needed all across Europe to reduce and eventually eliminate poverty, it is a small but strategically important emergency response that will also support the crucial follow-on social inclusion measures, such as helping the homeless find a permanent home or move towards employment. Whereas the outgoing European programme was a food-centred programme, FEAD is very much a progressive, people-centred initiative.
Ireland must now decide how to implement the programme – whether to concentrate on food aid only, food aid plus basic material assistance, or social inclusion measures only. FEAD clearly has the potential to play an important role in improving the lives of people at the margins of society.
Emer Costello represents the Dublin Constituency in the European Parliament, where she is a member of the EP’s Employment & Social Affairs Committee. For further information about Emer’s work on the Youth Guarantee, see www.emercostello.ie or contact her directly on @emercostello, emer.costello@europarl.europa.eu or telephone (01) 1 874 6109.
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Great negotiation skills by a so called world leader.
@Tony Gordon: T’was those same great negotiation skills that got the pharmacy industry to lower their prices after he met up with them 2 years ago.Oh,wait…
@Francis Mc Carthy: yep. Pharma prices to increase in January https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-drugpricing-exclusive/exclusive-big-pharma-returning-to-u-s-price-hikes-in-january-after-pause-idUSKCN1OJ01E
@Francis Mc Carthy: Nothing of the sort. It was the public outcry. Then he goes and screws his red necks with messing about with health care.
@Francis Mc Carthy: prices lowered? Who are you kidding? Someone just died in the US because they couldn’t afford their insulin.
@Francis Mc Carthy: sorry missed the sarcasm the first time…
What a very strange system of government the Americans have. One man can shut down services and affect peoples livelihoods over a wall. Very strange indeed.
I like the system
@Toby Fish: Troll?
@Toby Fish: you could always back your bags. Go live in Russia
@Darren McCormack: technically he can’t. Republicans are just cowards. All 100 Senators agreed to a deal funding the government over a month ago. Trump says he will veto that deal but guess what? A veto can be overturned by a 2/3 majority in the House and Senate. Both of whom could easily do this if they wanted. Long story short, Pelosi will now start passing individual bills for individual federal entities to get back to work and either get them to the Senate and passed or make McConnell refuse to reopen the government and adding another name to keep Don company in the title of this shutdown.
@Picture This:or America
@Darren McCormack: yes, it is a troll, best ignore it
@Darren McCormack: There’s a government on the island of Ireland that’s been closed for two years, glass houses and all that…
@James Wallace: I can’t like the American president without being a troll? You have a warped mind
@Paul Darby: Power gets transferred to Westminster and public services continue. Totally different, bud.
No one has ever sat down in front of him and said No until now and he can’t handle it.
Crazy can be medicated, ignorance can be educated, but there ain’t no cure for stupid.
@Pius Flynn: isn’t a not, ain’t no
Incredible to think worlds greatest power doesn’t understand the concept of a Ladder.
@iohanx: or a tunnel. Or the ocean. Or a plane. Cartels have even used a makeshift catapult on the back up a pickup to launch drugs over the border
@iohanx: Or a tunnel.
He’s an utter embarrassment at this stage.
This is typical behaviour for a bully who is used to getting his own way. Usually if you disagree with him you get fired, but he can’t fire Democrats.
Leave him call his so called emergency, it’ll result in him taking over 5billion out of the military budget which they will be pissed at, which in turn will make republicans pissed at him.
Oh and it’ll also fail horribly as both Democrats and republicans will take cases to court to stop him.
Even republicans will want him out of the job once they see he’s over stepped his mark.
@Barry Somers: oh I’d say the Republicans already want him gone.
@Barry Somers: And it was never an emergency the previous 2 years when they had control. The fool.
@Paul Furey: They didn’t have a two thirds majority in the senate. But I won’t call you a fool.
@Shane Dignam: they still don’t so offer that as a reason for the timing is foolish
@Paul Furey: By calling for the funding now, Trump can blame the Democrats for not getting it.
@Gerard McDermott: he always could. Democrats had massive gains in the midterms and they all ran on opposing the wall.
USA is arguing over a useless wall while it abandons its friends
@trebloc01: Trump hates democracy, he shuns democratically elected leaders and admirers dictators like Kim Jong-Un.
Trump is an embarrassment to his country and a danger to the world
@Dotty He shouldn’t have made peace with rocket Man. The continuous nuclear testing and threats were much better
@Dotty Dunleary: Would you like to show me some examples of genuine democracy in the West please? And how is Trump any different than Obama, or May, Macron, Merkel (3 M’s?), or any other Western head of state that feel they can invade a sovereign nation to achieve its own agenda?
I’m all for calling out fools, tyrants and despots, but let us be consistent and unbiased, lest we lose credibility.
@Toby Fish: the tests didnt stop, Trumps summit with N K was a failure, but he still claims it was a success
@James Wallace: when was the last one? Do you know something everyone else doesn’t?
The GOP controlled both the Senate and congress for the first two years of his presidency, so why didn’t he try to obtain the funds then? Why wait until he had lost control of the house?
@Paul Quinlan: because his election promise was that Mexico would pay for it. He got no traction there so no he is looking inward to the American tax payer to fund his vanity project.
@Paul Quinlan: so he can blame someone else for his failure
He passed out candy… I don’t know if that’s better or worse than walking off in a strop
@thomas patrick: what’s worse again is Pence using the candy as proof that Trump came in good faith. “No, we won’t find your wall” “But I brought candy, surely tha…” “NO” “But, but, but, but the candy”
The democrats are as much to blame. They would rather increase foreign aid to other countries rather than protect own border. Takes two to tango.
@Jack Simpson: There’s only one boss. The buck stops with the boss.
@Jack Simpson: There was over 303,000 border apprehensions in 2017 alone,it’s already well protected.
The Democrats offered plenty of money to the ‘great negotiator’ early last year,& the ‘great negotiator’ only went and turned it down (twice) .So don’t go blaming the Democrats for that guys ‘yuge’ failures.
@Jack Simpson: The “two to tango” argument has already been ripped to shreds. Keep up (and Google “false equivalency”).
@Jack Simpson: Do you think you’re convincing anyone with that nonsense?
The Budget was passed 100-0. Trump refused to sign it because Fox news called him names.
The only reason it’s not getting voted on again in the Senate is because the same people that voted for it the first time know it’ll annoy Tango Palpatine and he’ll again refuse to sign.
Mitch McConnell says that he won’t bring to the Senate any shutdown resolution (that Congress passes) that the president isn’t committed to sign. Basically he is allowing Tango Palpatine to hold the country to ransom for a ridiculous wall. E-Verify would have been a better hill to die on if he REALLY cared about immigration!
@Francis Mc Carthy: Huge
@Juan Fangio: So that removes democrats from any responsibility? The president is not a dictator. He requires support from democrats on this issue. Border security was one of the reasons why he was elected. Dems appear to be engaging in political theatrics like with Russiagate.
@Francis Mc Carthy: How many potential border apprehensions were missed due to inadequate security? Don’t border guards support Trump on this? I’d believe them over Francis McCarthy any day.
@Kem Trayle: How has it?
@Jack Simpson: You say the president is not a dictator, I think someone needs to explain this to him. Border security was one of the issues that got him elected, another was his great experience in business, you probably know he “wrote” a book, “The art of the Deal”, what a joke, he was going to make great deals for America around the world. He can’t even do a deal with his own government, storming out of meetings like a spoiled child.
@Jack Simpson: Have you got any idea on how many people have got in to the US due to inadequate security ? Maybe you should e-mail the border security guards and ask them what they believe the numbers to be ?
ps; I don’t care if you believe them over me.xxxoooxxx
@Shane Dignam: that’s what she says.
@Francis Mc Carthy: When she said “huge knob” last night, I don’t think she meant what you think.
@Shane Dignam: your hearing is bad.Your eyesight is worse :p
It’s my way or no way
The US really is a failed state at this stage.
Finally a leader we can trust. A man of integrity. #MAGA
@michael smith: Trust to shut the nation down.
@michael smith: Why are Americans targeting Irish websites now???
And yet he’ll get re-elected USAUSA
He’s backed himself into a corner on this-His primaries campaign only really took off when he started banging in about the wall (and lock her up, another failed promise).
He’s a man who has used to getting his own way all the time, so expect the mother of all tantrums and deflection in the next few weeks.
Dude is obsessed with walls!!
It’s funny how an event can be perceived in different ways and how you see it depends on your preconceived notions. Was he playing hardball or throwing his toys out of the pram? Maybe it depends on the final outcome. But it seems like a silly game to play.
Samalia pirates can board a moving tanker in open water the size of multistory car park with rope and bamboo and this fool thinks nobody can scale a wall.
Trump is a developer, I wonder who gets the contract to build this wall he is so desperate to get built
@Ciarán Ó Dubhda: If you think the Wall is suspect you should look at his Infrastructure plan…. all private companies getting huge tax breaks and they would then own what they build.
“How much more American blood must be shed”
Is he for real.i don’t have any figures to back this up but I’m pretty confident that more Americans are killed by Americans using guns in the USA than immigrants crossing the border.sort your gun problem out first before you build any stupid wall.
@Tony Hanratty: Illegal immigrants should not be in the country in the first place. That’s what makes crime by this demographic so hard to swallow.
This wall idea is nonsense and simply a campaign pledge that Trump wants to tick off but illegal immigration and the drugs/crime that come with it has to be tackled.
Whataboutery regarding America’s gun culture won’t make this separate issue go away.
Obama, Biden, Clinton, Pelosi are all on record calling for stronger border controls/barriers until Trump came to power. Then they suddenly change their tune.
Partisan politics is destroying America and Trump is not solely to blame for this.
@Tony Hanratty: You really should’ve stopped after “i don’t have any figures to back this up”
The Art of the Deal. Lol
So now he’s holding 800,000 employees hostage and he wants to negotiate?
Right..
Time for yellow vests
Headline is completely incorrect according to the majority of the meeting.
It’s funny how it’s the democrats refusal to work with trump on anything that he proposes that caused the shutdown, and now their hope is that people will blame trump out of impatience… but no it’s all trumps fault. Don’t be sheep, do your own research.
He’s like a child!
Sick of hearing about this fool everyday.. YAWN..
Trump claimed that he is some kind of world class deal maker and negotiator ..except now when it comes down to it he is being exposed for the fraudster that he really is ..the guy is an absolute charlatan..he has no skill in solving problems rather he just creates them
He was elected on a campaign promise to build this wall, the new trade deal with Mexico pays for the wall, all these democrats opposing him are on camera saying they need to build a wall a few years ago, 100s of miles of wall was built during Obama administration. He is right to walk out, he already told them there’s no deal without the wall, border security want the wall. Ye haven’t a clue.
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