SDLP Opposition Communities Spokesperson Daniel McCrossan MLA has challenged the Minister to explain how he intends to tackle the amount of people relying on food banks.

He was speaking after a report from the Trussell Trust said 35,000 emergency food parcels were distributed across the North between April and September.

Although there has been a slight drop from the same period last year, this is a 93% rise on five years ago.

West Tyrone MLA Mr McCrossan said:

“I wish I could say that these figures were shocking, but we have been hearing similar warnings from the Trussell Trust around a long-term increase in food bank use for some time and there has been very little done by the Executive to tackle it. This 35,000 figure includes 14,000 children and it’s heartbreaking to think that there are that many people in our society struggling to put food on the table, never mind children going hungry.

“That 7,400 people visited a foodbank in the North for the first time between April and September points to a serious problem that isn’t going away. Many families are still struggling with the cost of living and we have heard reports of people at all levels of our society having no option but to turn to food banks.

“I am directly urging the Communities Minister to outline what engagement he and his department have had with the Trussell Trust and what he intends to do to reduce these appalling figures. We are still without an anti-poverty strategy and this wasn’t even mentioned in the Executive’s draft Programme for Government. Unless they start treating poverty with the seriousness it deserves then we are going to see more and more people left without vital support and struggling to feed themselves and their families.”