Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is important to put on the record that poverty, including child poverty, and inequality in Ireland have fallen, but we had a significant setback last year because of the cost-of-living crisis and inflation. I am determined that we get back on track now in reducing consistent poverty and the number of people at risk of poverty, particularly children, and in order that inequality continues to narrow. We have done a lot of things already, such as increasing the national minimum wage and moving to a living wage, which is now very much under way; introducing improvements in welfare payments, free schoolbooks and free school meals, where there are really important interventions; and reducing the cost of childcare. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, in particular has shown a lot of leadership on that. We have therefore shown cause and form already, and those are just some of the things that have been done. The abolition of hospital charges for children is another example.

One thing I really want to make sure happens in the budget in October is that child poverty and well-being are one of its themes. The new unit, which is now established, has a staff and a director. It is looking at a whole menu of options, costing them and then working out the impact they would have on child poverty. We will not be able to do them all but we will be able to do some of them. It is also looking at the issues of workless households, services for children, and pilots done in the past that were very successful but did not get mainstreamed. We are brilliant in Ireland for doing a pilot, saying how great it is and then deciding not to mainstream it. We probably need to do fewer pilots and a bit more mainstreaming. We are working on that.