Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The national social target for poverty reduction is to achieve 4% by 2016 and 2% or less by 2020. A diverse range of actions in support of the target are set out in the National Action Plan for Social Inclusion, with annual updates in the national reform programme under the Europe 2020 strategy. We have also recently adopted a child-specific poverty sub-target in the policy framework for children and young people, which is to reduce the number of children in consistent poverty by 70,000 by 2020, which is a reduction of two thirds on 2011.

The Deputy may be aware the Government's proposals published last Friday referred to people in work on very low wages. We have committed to the establishment of a low pay commission, as there are a number of issues. The minimum wage, at €8.65 per hour, is relatively good but if a person only has ten hours of work per week, he or she will rely on social welfare for the balance of income. We have put significant extra resources into family income supplement to assist families in low income at work with children. We will continue to extend initiatives in that area to support families.

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