John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 4:

In page 8, between lines 23 and 24, to insert the following:

“Child Poverty annual report

16. The Minister shall prepare and lay a report before the Houses of the Oireachtas on the State’s child poverty rates which will be carried out annually and that this report shall be issued to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection.”.

The amendment seeks to get an annual report commissioned on child poverty levels. I outlined some of the poverty rates affecting children, for example, it is 22.1% in single-parent families. The national figure for children living in a constant state of poverty is more than 11%. On Committee Stage the Minister outlined that a number of different reports are commissioned on an annual basis and he outlined one but, unfortunately, the latest figures we have are already out of date because they are from 2014.

I do not see how we can make reasonable assessments or how the Minister can put together a budget without having available the most up-to-date figures for child poverty. The amendment asks the Minister to have compiled and presented an annual report on child poverty figures. As there is no statutory footing for the other annual reports mentioned by him, there is no legal obligation. We are asking for such a report to be enshrined in legislation in order that it would be produced on an annual basis and we would have the most up-to-date figures. If we follow the Minister's logic on the reports commissioned on annual basis, we will only receive the child poverty rates for 2015 in the next couple of weeks. As those figures are already out of date, it makes no sense. It is a simple amendment that would ensure we would be statutorily bound to have the report compiled and published. We could then make a reasonable assessment of the targeted measures that needed to be put in place. I do not see how the Minister can talk about lifting 97,000 children out of consistent poverty by 2020 or 2021 without having the most up-to-date figures available that he could analyse. Last week he said on Committee Stage that we needed the most up-to-date figures; therefore, he actually agreed with the principle. We are asking him to follow through on it and ensure we would be statutorily bound to have the report produced and presented in order that we could analyse it.

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