She was speaking ahead of an Alliance motion due to be debated in the Assembly on Monday (27 Jan) addressing rising rates of child food poverty in Northern Ireland.
The motion expresses grave alarm at recent statistics from Trussell detailing that the number of emergency food parcels distributed by their food banks to children in NI increased by 90% over the last five years.
The North Antrim MLA has said: “Living in poverty can leave a permanent scar on a child’s life, inflicting damage on their physical, educational, social and developmental needs in innumerable ways.
“The Anti-Poverty Strategy has been an Executive commitment since the St Andrew’s Agreement in 2006. It is simply outrageous that in 2025 it still hasn’t been published. The draft Programme for Government has a general commitment to support children’s well-being and that only underlines further the importance of the Minister advancing the strategy with urgency, as well as ensuring it is fully funded, fully resourced, and built around clear, time-bound objectives and measurable outcomes.
“Alongside this, we desperately need to see engagement with the Department for Work and Pensions to spearhead progressive changes to our social security system. The likes of the Two-Child Limit impacts thousands of children in Northern Ireland and is a major driver of poverty and destitution. Scrapping it could cut the cost of child poverty by billions per year across the UK and help ensure that every young person has the best start in life.
“Our children deserve action, not just sympathy. The lifelong impacts of child poverty are stark and words alone won’t lift children and their families out of it. Delivering tangible results will, and I would urge the minister to get on with that job without delay.”
Lynsey Agnew from the Lisburn Foodbank added: “Child poverty is not just a statistic; it represents real families struggling to provide for their children's basic needs. An adequate standard of living is not a privilege, but a right.
“64% of our centre users in 2023/24 were first time visitors. We have fed 1 in 16 children in Lisburn. On a weekly basis we have parents coming into our centre needing help because they just can’t make ends meet. By the time they pay for childcare there isn’t much left for groceries and other basic expenses, luxuries aren’t even an option, and if something like a school trip or a birthday party comes up it causes these parents so much stress.
“This isn’t good enough. We can’t let it go on. No parent should feel like a failure because they have been let down by a broken system.”