Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Addressing child poverty is a key priority for the Government and the Taoiseach has made it clear to me in my appointment that he wants this prioritised. As the Deputy has said, one of the commitments in the programme for Government is to explore a targeted child benefit payment and examine the interaction that would have with existing targeted supports to reduce child poverty, including the working family payment and the child support payment. My Department is beginning to progress this work under the auspices of the newly established Cabinet committee on children, and with regard to a lot of evidence and work that has been done in this space, including by the ESRI, NESC and the Commission on Taxation and Welfare. Among other matters the work will have to consider is how a targeted child benefit might interact with existing payments. That will be considered as part of the broader examination of the potential design. We are at early days in this, so we are not in a position of looking at timelines, but I am open to suggestions for it. We are putting a lot of work into the new committee for social protection, but that will also be a good forum in which to discuss it.

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