Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am very much aware of the National Advisory Council for Children and Young People's position paper on child poverty, which I published on my Department's website last week, along with the final Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures annual report and updated indicator set. I had excellent engagement with the advisory council on the issue, and I met with them in December specifically on the child poverty paper.

The Deputy will be aware that it is the Department of Social Protection that leads on the Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025, aimed at reducing poverty, including child poverty, and improving social inclusion. Last September I circulated the advisory council's paper to the BOBF consortium, and to the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien and the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, requesting them to give detailed consideration to the recommendations in the context of their budget 2022 discussions.

In respect of the council's recommendation to give voice to children experiencing poverty, my Department has published a request for tenders seeking methodological advice on hearing the voices of children who are in poverty. I have also met with the Ombudsman for Children regarding his A Better Normal report on child poverty and child homelessness. The Deputy will be aware that we have discussed that paper in this House.

In budget 2022, I secured additional funding within my Department to reduce childcare costs for parents and to reform the national childcare scheme to positively impact on children in socio-economically disadvantaged communities and, on services with high concentrations of families from socio-economically disadvantaged communities. The Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien's, officials and mine are in contact with regard to a new target for child poverty under the roadmap for social inclusion, and identifying a programme of work to address child poverty under the successor framework. I will meet with the Minister of State later this month on this issue.

I will shortly bring the draft EU child guarantee national action plan to Government. The plan addresses a number of critical matters: securing free access to early childhood education and care; education; and healthcare for children in need. As part of this process, and in developing the successor national policy framework to Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures, I will continue to engage with my Cabinet colleagues to pursue a coherent agenda on child poverty. A key part of that will be the Better Outcomes, Better Futures successor strategy.

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