Eoin Hayes (Dublin Bay South, Social Democrats)

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 5, between lines 29 and 30, to insert the following: “(3) The Minister shall prepare and lay a report before both Houses of the Oireachtas on introducing a second tier of child benefit by integrating the Child Support Payment with a modified Working Family Payment to reduce child poverty, and the report shall be presented to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Social Protection within 6 months of the passing of this Act.”.

I welcome this part of the Bill. The extension of the working family payment is extremely important in the current social welfare model.

My amendment is specifically around the second tier of child benefit. It is worth remembering that, in August and September as we were running up to the budget, there was a lot of kite flying from the Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil more generally about ensuring that there would not just be a second tier of child benefit, but that there would be equal measures, something that would be the same as a second tier of child benefit. As the Minister and I know, about half the budget that would have been needed to deliver a second tier of child benefit was allocated to child poverty in this working family payment. This goes to the heart of the question of why we would need a report. If we see that the person who leads the country wants to see a policy enacted and then two months later it is not, it becomes a question of why. What was the specific thing that held it up? Was it the Department of Finance or the Department of public expenditure, or were there problems in terms of the workings of that particular payment and how it was going to be successful to target child poverty? As the Minister knows, child poverty has doubled in the past two years to 8.5%, so there is a real urgency, especially considering that the target to bring it down to 3% is within the programme for Government. I hope the Minister will agree with me on this amendment.