Máire Uí Chomhail wants a national food poverty fund

The Donegal Food Equality Forum believes there should be a national fund to help groups with food poverty. In collaboration with the 21 members of the Donegal Food Response Network, they are preparing to send a delegation to Dáil Éireann to highlight the issue.
Máire Uí Chomhail, manager of Ionad Naomh Pádraig in Gweedore, Co. Donegal - a Gaeltacht region - said politicians seem unaware of the extent of the issue.
Asked what is needed in Ireland to tackle food poverty, she said:
“The service we provide is run by the community. We’re totally dependant on the community to help us to help others.
“There should definitely be a funding stream that we can draw from to help struggling families in this area here in the Gaeltacht and nationally it should be policy.
“It’s such a big problem that nobody knows how to tackle it. There is definitely children that will be hungry this evening and children will wake up in the morning and there will not be a lot there for breakfast.
“Without breaking any confidentiality with families, we need to find a better way to help families who are struggling and to ensure that no child goes to bed hungry or wakes up hungry in the morning.
“The government should set up a permanent national fund. When Covid was there, there were funding pots for everything, to help all sorts of people struggling.
“We want an annual fund, a place we could be assured we’d get €5-10k a year to ensure we could continue the good work we do in the community and (to support) similar work by other social enterprises and community groups provide in Donegal and nationally,” she said.
The network is planning to go to Dáil Éireann to get their message across.