Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)

I know the Minister, Deputy Calleary, ended by saying the Government will strive to reduce child poverty. What he should be saying is it will aim to eradicate child poverty. Not enough debates in here are about philosophy, but ultimately this is a debate about political philosophies. If you want to break that down into layman's language in relation to this issue, it is about whether we should be doing everything we can to prevent children from being homeless, sleeping with their families in a car, which I have had to deal with in the not too recent past, or whether we should give a tax break to McDonald's. This is a real issue for the Government facing into this budget, because it is either children sleeping in cars and homeless, or a tax break to Ronny McDonald. That is the choice. Ultimately, we need to break it down for the general public out there that these are the choices we, as a Chamber, collectively have to make, and which the Government will be pushing through. That is the difference between what the Government believes in and what we believe in. We do not say that too lightly, but we have to say it because we have to break it down into the choices that we have. The Government has choices.

The cost-of-living situation is chronic. I have never seen it as bad. A teacher has told me of a situation, and I support the hot school meals programme, where a student stuffed their bag with a couple of extra meals because they said "Mammy likes those meals." It is great that they actually have those meals. Where are we going as a country when a child is eyeing up excess meals from the school-based programme to bring them home because their parents need to eat? That is where we are at.

I accept the school meals programme, the back to school books allowance and the provision of books and other resources are good. However, the fact of the matter is that the escalating costs in this country across all the range of issues my colleagues mentioned is so excessive that we need to continue the targeted measures my colleagues have listed. The Government really needs to make those decisions within the next two weeks, otherwise when the budget is announced I will be coming back in here and repeating what I said at the start. The Government has a choice between trying to help children who are sleeping in cars with their families because they are homeless or giving a tax break to Ronny McDonald. Which one will the Government do?

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