Denise Mitchell (Dublin Bay North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome what the Minister is saying but we cannot ignore the elephant in the room, namely, that there are 138,000 children in this State living in poverty and 4,000 homeless children. We all know that the better the start a child has in life, the better his or her prospects.

In the upcoming budget, we seriously need to focus on children. We need to see a budget that is proofed for child poverty and that will break the cycle of poverty. We need to see the supports the Minister talks about in place and working to prevent more children from being added to the list of children in poverty. I am confident that the Minister is a voice going into the discussions, but I sometimes wonder whether her colleagues are on the same page.

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