Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Having listened to the debate, I find it incredible that the Department cannot act on this. One of the major factors in alleviating the rate of child poverty is the Department of Social Protection. Surely that Department should be modelling the effects and impacts its policies and payments are having on consistent poverty rates on an ongoing basis.

It seems incredible that the Department could not do this, or is not already doing it. We know what the standard rate measure is for consistent child poverty. There is a percentile figure for median income. The Department has figures for the numbers of people who are transitioning from jobskeeker's allowance into work and who are in receipt of jobseeker's benefit and family income supplement, as well as the number of lone parents in receipt of payments. It also has figures which indicate the lack of any increase in these payments in previous years. It could be modelling these figures on an ongoing basis and there is absolutely no reason it should not be doing this in its day-to-day work. Surely, when it is preparing a budget and looking at whether a specific payment should be increased it looks not only at how much the measure would cost but also at what the potential impact would be. I hope that is what it does in deciding whether payments should be increased.. It beggars belief that, in this day and age, a Department the size of the Department of Social Protection does not have these figures, has to wait for the CSO to supply them and is not doing this work on an ongoing basis. If it was to lay a report before the House that would differ slightly from the report of the CSO to be presented a year later, so be it. At least it would show the Department was being proactive in some way, was actually modelling on a rolling basis and measuring the impact of its own policies and payments.

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