Human Resources committee  Thank you very much. Again, it's very interesting for us to hear about all the Canadian-Irish links there are. In my own case, I have three first cousins in Canada, one of whom has the same name as mine, so we have a lot of personal contacts there. In terms of the commentary made, quite rightly, about the left-of-centre politician, I suppose it's just that the person who started it happened to be that.

Human Resources committee  I'll ask Kevin or Bevin to respond.

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Martin. We're also obviously disappointed that you and your colleagues weren't able to make it, but we can understand how difficulties arise, as we work with ministers and parliamentarians and whatever. We'll look forward to meeting you, hopefully, if you can visit us next week.

Human Resources committee  In terms of speeding things up, it's somewhat amusing when you look back on it. When the targets to reduce poverty were set in 1997, they were set on the basis of older figures, as those were the most available knowledge at that stage. When they came to do a survey of poverty subsequently, they discovered that the targets had already been exceeded when they were set in 1997 because they were basing them on older information.

Human Resources committee  That clearly demonstrates that one of the outcomes of the Celtic Tiger was that there were more resources to channel into support for those who are least well off. An interesting dimension to that, and it's something that has created a lot of problems for us, is that the rate of relative poverty actually increased while all this was happening.

Human Resources committee  Could I just make a few comments on that? A number of things came together at that particular time, and one of the first ones was the complexion of the government at the time, in that there was a minister who was from a more left-of-centre government, which probably might have been a factor—but it was still widely supported, so it might still have happened.

Human Resources committee  I suppose it happens at a number of levels. I think, first of all, there needs to be a strong government commitment from the top. What's actually at issue here is not necessarily more resources, although that's part of it, but it's a recognition that if we're to tackle poverty, we need to adopt a strategic approach, we need to know what the nature and scope and scale of poverty is, and we need to know what our objectives are and so on.

Human Resources committee  Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much, Chairman. I'd just like to say how pleased we are to have this opportunity to talk to you about our poverty strategy here in Ireland. We're conscious that it's our experience, which would, of course, also be partly a European experience. Hopefully it will be of interest to you.

Human Resources committee  Okay. We didn't have as much difficulty as I suspect you had in changing our schedule. We're just here mid-morning in Ireland, and we are conscious of your very early start to be here with us. We're very pleased the changes you had to introduce didn't prevent us from having this exchange of views.