Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I have been working with my colleague, the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman. We had a formal meeting about issues relating to child poverty and setting a new target to reduce it. We will have the successor to Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures as well. We are also in the process of bringing on board an EU child guarantee. Those are frameworks that will push matters on politically as well.

In terms of people who are working and are also under that line, the Government wants to ensure the welfare system supports people in taking up employment and increasing their level of employment. The Pathways to Work strategy includes a commitment to prepare a paper on options to modify the longer term jobseeker's assistance payment by utilising the Revenue real-time earnings data to adjust payment levels in line with a person's weekly earnings to guarantee a basic income floor and ensure that in all cases a person's earnings increase when he or she works. When people are on a welfare payment, especially if they have children, there is always a decision to be made on whether it is worthwhile to take up employment. We want to ensure that is always the case and the options paper will help us to get to that point.

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