Ms Louise Bayliss:

If we look at the ESRI report and the working tax strategy, there are concerns there. While 40,000 children will be lifted out of poverty, 100,000 children will lose income. Some of them are people who would be getting the child support payment rate because they have carers and would not qualify on income for that, but many of the people who will lose money are children in the three lower income deciles and that is worrying because we know they are facing poverty already. Some of them will lose up to 16% of their income, based on the ESRI report. Any investment that costs €772 million should be clearly justified by evidence. We need to ensure no child is worse off. We need to get that reassurance and the programme should be adapted to make sure those loopholes do not exist. I would love to see €772 million invested in child income supports but not necessarily in the second tier benefit if it means that some children are going to lose out. The MESL report clearly shows that social protection covers 113% of babies' needs, 115% of preschool needs, 88% of primary school needs and only 64% at second level. The recommendation for the second tier is that people get the same regardless of the age of the child, and that is contrary to what we know the needs of the child are. Those are my concerns around that.