One thing that I think is important that we haven't mentioned at all this morning is what Gerry talked about, the National Action Plan for Social Inclusion, 2007-20016, a plan that we have had in place since last year. In Northern Ireland, they also have a similar document called Lifetime Opportunities. In both of these documents, there is similar text committing us to tackling poverty and social exclusion on an all-Ireland basis. We're working towards that; we do some work with Northern Ireland on tackling some of the issues, in particular, around the rural poverty that might result in the border regions in Ireland. That's an important aspect that we haven't mentioned already, but which I think is important.
On your second question, I suppose one of the interesting things we've learned is that one ministry or department will do something that leads to a poverty trap, which then needs to be tackled by another department, such as the Department of Social and Family Affairs. For example, about two or three years ago, the Department of the Environment allowed local authorities to introduce waste charges, without studying the impact that would have on low-income families, who very often have more waste because they have more children and they don't have the facilities to get to Bring centres, or whatever. So sometimes things happen in one area that have an impact on people living in poverty, which then need to be addressed on a whole-of-government or joined-up government approach.
Another one would be lone parents, as Gerry has already mentioned. Certainly, there are a lot of unemployed people trying to get to training centres, but the Department of Transport may decide to allow the national transport company to cut back on transport services, because of commercial reasons in some of the rural areas, which cuts off people living alone. In fact, another department that looks after community development has had to introduce a second transport system to compensate for the national transport company stopping services.
So you have situations where you do something in one area that has a knock-on effect or impact on people living in poverty, and it needs to be addressed in another way. It's a matter of trying to get all of these things to work together and to have a joined-up government approach to dealing with all of the very complex issues around poverty.