Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The UNICEF report is clear. Of the 41 countries surveyed, we come in at No. 37. That puts us behind countries that only recently became democracies and countries whose economies are far less well developed than ours.

The Minister mentioned three things in regard to social transfers, one of which was the partial alleviation in the original reduction in child benefit. Commenting on that, the Children's Rights Alliance stated:

Child Poverty gets an 'F' grade in Report Card 2015, a fall from last year’s 'E-' grade. This is due to the fact that although the Government introduced a small monthly increase in the Child Benefit payment ... this gesture does not go far enough to reverse the impact that austerity budgets have already had on children living in poverty.

The Minister mentioned two other transfers. The €22 million family dividend is only a drop in the ocean and will not apply to families who have to continue to rely on social welfare. There is also the increase of €2 million in the child meals programme. That is not going to reverse the trend towards increasing levels of child poverty in this country.

The Minister mentioned studies, reports, whole-of-government approaches and so on. The figures are consistently getting worse. Does the Government have any specific proposals that will arrest this trend?

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