Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 18 June 2025

Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development

Effect of Child-related Benefits on Child Poverty and Deprivation: ESRI

2:00 am

Photo of Louise O'ReillyLouise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal West, Sinn Fein)
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I am conscious that anything that requires a ten-page brochure is not really going to do it at the end of the day. I have read the ESRI report and I have read plenty of others and understand people are in poverty because they do not have enough money and in-cash transfers are really the only way. It is as basic and as simple as that. It is a question for us, as a committee, to consider how best we can achieve that goal.

My last question relates to the Government's child poverty strategy. The date on it has been pushed out. We were due to have results by 2020 but the date on it has been pushed out again. On the current track, if nothing changes and we just have Government policy exactly as it is now, are the rates of children in consistent poverty likely to stay the same, get worse or get better? We all envisage and hope that there will be a change in the budget, specifically to tackle child poverty which is something that this and the previous Government have shown themselves not to be massively interested in. If nothing changes, what are we looking at in terms of rates of consistent child poverty?