Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The next set of figures will be released in the CSO in the survey on income and living conditions which is expected in November. We will have the 2015 figures next month. We have revised the figure up to 97,000 children. The Deputy is quite right that it is not because children have become poorer; it is because median incomes have gone up and therefore the poverty line has moved. It will be a very hard target to meet but I am determined to meet it through improvements in services like child care, education and health and getting more people with children into work and also through changes to welfare payments. There has been an enormous focus on what is in the budget for pensioners but I am determined that there will be something in it for people on welfare who have children. They are very often the children in poverty. That includes lone parents, carers and people on disability allowance and jobseeker's payments.

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