Ms Saoirse Brady:

Child poverty is a priority area for the Children's Rights Alliance. We have done a lot of work on it. We believe that child poverty rates, both North and South, could be seriously impacted by Brexit. We know that with Brexit, Northern Ireland will not receive additional social inclusion moneys from the European Union, nor will it receive further peace funding. We know that the Brexit result has already caused some economic uncertainty, and we would be greatly concerned about any further impact of austerity on children on both sides of the Border.

In the last recession, children, both North and South, bore the brunt of it and of austerity measures. We know that a quarter of children in the North live in poverty, while almost 12% live in poverty in the South, even though in the South we have some of the highest social welfare payment rates in the OECD. We believe there is not enough investment in prevention, in early intervention and in free, accessible and equitable public services in the South. That is one of the reasons for continued high poverty rates for children. The EU recommendation, Investing in Children, outlines a roadmap for lifting children out of poverty. The Government is currently putting in place a whole-of-Government approach to tackling child poverty. They have a child poverty target to lift 97,000 children out of consistent poverty.

What will happen to that if the economy suffers? While the Good Friday Agreement does not specifically mention poverty anywhere in its text, it reaffirms both Governments' commitments to upholding economic, social and cultural rights, as well as civil and political rights. However, one of the most important socio-economic rights is the right to an adequate standard of living. That addresses important issues like food poverty, housing and material deprivation. We believe that any British-Irish agreement resulting from Brexit must include a focus on tackling child poverty both North and South and that this is a key human rights issues and should set out clear indicators and actions for reducing child poverty on both sides of the Border.

I am also going to talk about citizenship and cross-Border legal rights and entitlements of children before passing back to my colleague, Ms Ward. The Good Friday Agreement means that people born in the North have the right to identify as Irish, British, or both. This right to dual citizenship will not be impacted by any future change in the status of Northern Ireland. That is built into the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. Clearly, this means that our citizens in the North cannot be robbed of their Irish citizenship, nor their EU citizenship by extension. It is critical that the negotiations between the Irish, British and EU Governments recognise the special status of the North in this regard, and the fact that the Good Friday Agreement protects this important right.

The common travel area and EU free movement rights have ensured that Irish children living in the UK and British children living in Ireland have generally been able to access services on an equal footing. We would be concerned that a hard Brexit will impact on the rights and entitlements of hundreds of thousands of children in both jurisdictions. We are also concerned about the implications for specific groups of children, for example, children who travel North and South to avail of medical services, and Traveller children who move with their families between the two jurisdictions. What implications will Brexit have for them? The answer, of course, is to preserve the common travel area, and to ensure the rights of children and young people are protected in both the North and South. A British-Irish agreement should include a specific obligation to preserve the common travel area and protect the rights of Irish and British citizens in both countries.