A Junior Minister for Food is necessary to eliminate food poverty, a number of charities working with the poor have said.
An estimated 200,000 people - among them 60,000 children - experience food poverty, according to Ms Audrey Deane, social policy officer with the Society of St Vincent de Paul. She was speaking at a round table discussion in Dublin yesterday along with Crosscare and the Combat Poverty Agency.
"Food poverty is, put most simply, lack of access to affordable food. That could be simply due to an inadequate income or an inadequate income to afford the food the person can actually access. This can be a real issue in huge housing estates where there's only one corner shop, where prices are higher and selection narrower than in the multiples."
Typically, families trying to make meagre resources stretch will have a diet centred around "filler foods" - typically low quality carbohydrates - such as white bread, potatoes and high-sugar breakfast cereals, low quality meat and a low fresh fruit or vegetable intake.
"There is a constellation of factors. There is often a high knowledge about what is healthy food but other factors, including financial resources, personal skills and cultural norms and knowledge all contribute," said Ms Deane.
Food poverty impacts right across the lives of poorer families and contributes to intergenerational poverty, she argued.
"In terms of health, mortality rates in the lowest socio-economic groups are between 100 per cent and 200 per cent higher, depending on the cause of death, than in the higher groups."
For circulatory diseases, for example, mortality rates in the poorest groups between 1989 and 1999 were 120 per cent higher than in the richest. For cancers, the rate was over 100 per cent and for respiratory diseases it was over 200 per cent higher, she said. While factors such as unequal access to healthcare contribute, diet undoubtedly played a major role in these differences, she argued.
"In education, well, you can't learn as well if you haven't had a good breakfast," said Ms Deane.
Mr Jim Walsh, research and policy officer with the Combat Poverty Agency, said there were "now a number of what are virtually 'food deserts' appearing in large urban disadvantaged areas around Ireland".
Ms Deane said there was clear evidence that larger supermarkets would not open branches in the poorest suburban estates "because the returns are too low".
"The people living here are not able to get in their four-by-fours and drive to the nearest large supermarket."
She said those in Government and at policy level were "not comfortable talking about food poverty. It doesn't sit well with our view of ourselves as a successful nation. No-one wants to take responsibility for tackling it. What we need is a junior minister for food."
A study published by Crosscare, the Society for St Vincent de Paul and the Combat Poverty Agency earlier this year, entitled Food Poverty and Policy, called for improvements to food supply and retail services, as well as a national nutrition policy with equal access to quality food. It also called for dietary knowledge to be improved.
