Mr. Niall Egan:

I will take the first questions and I will ask my colleague to respond to the questions about the working family payment. We do not have a figure for how much it will cost to achieve the target but it will be quite a bit - I think that goes without saying. This was a very focused social welfare package to help tackle child poverty and at €320 million it is a significant component of the overall social welfare package in budget 2026. Tackling child poverty is not just about welfare supports. It will also be very effective in increasing employment levels of recipients of social welfare and participation rates. We have seen a remarkable increase in participation rates, particularly among females. This has had a positive impact on poverty levels generally across the State. Our focus is not just on income supports. We are also trying to help people bridge the gap between being reliant on social welfare and moving into employment. This is not just the work of the Department. The role of the child poverty and well-being unit in the Department of Taoiseach has really brought to the fore the fact it is about a range of issues and the unit tracks it across six separate issues. It includes housing, education, targeted services and reducing the cost of childcare in line with the commitment in the programme for Government. These measures will facilitate more people to increase their ability to access employment and increase their take-home pay, which will in turn drive the reduction in poverty levels. There is no single figure but our progress on the child poverty target will be reported on every year.

As part of the new roadmap for social inclusion, which will be published in the first half of next year, we are asking Departments about their targets and commitments. This will feed into action points for the new strategy and then there will be reporting on progress each year over the next five years on this focus on reducing child poverty. My colleague has just reminded me that the Department of the Taoiseach will be supplementing our child poverty target with a dashboard of indicators to take an holistic view of child poverty. One of the issues this will focus on is a rolling three-year average of child poverty to identify trends. This will ensure that it is not each year in isolation but will look back over three years to identify trends. As part of this dashboard they will also be looking at some of the issues we have discussed here, such as childcare costs and homelessness provision. I will ask my colleague Mr. Hession to address the Deputy's other questions.