Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

With respect to the Deputy, it has changed. It is almost seven years since these figures were produced and Ireland has changed dramatically in that time. While the Deputy is right to say the study places us as 22 out of 24 in regard to material well-being it puts us eighth in terms of educational well-being, seventh in family and peer relationships, fourth in behaviours and risks for children and fifth out of 21 for subjective well-being. In almost all the other measures in the study our children come out close to the top which brings us back to the question of how we measure poverty.

In the recent budget we put €240 million into a range of measures, a decision the House supported because it was necessary. For the first time since 1994 we put an extra €60 million into child dependant allowances with the result that the child benefit increase of €10 a month across the board was not the same for the one third of children on the bottom rung of that ladder. They got an extra €22 per month. That is the first time since 1994 that a clear preference was shown and funds were put into helping poor children, rather than making an across the board increase in child benefit which would perhaps have been politically more attractive but would not have been the right thing to do.

The increases in the family income supplement and in the one parent family payments have added up to a solid assault on child poverty. I am determined to keep up that pressure and eliminate child poverty.

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