Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Levels of child poverty in Ireland are too high. They had been falling for several years on the Government's watch. I am sorry the Deputy was not willing to acknowledge that but they had been consistently falling because of the policies we pursued as a Government. Over the past year, the cost-of-living crisis has changed that and I acknowledge that many families are now really struggling to make ends meet in a way they were not only a year ago. We did a lot to help in the budget. This included increases in pension and welfare payments, reductions in income tax and in costs such as childcare fees, and with the rent credit. Over the coming weeks, we will examine what we can do to help people in the spring.

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