Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)

I will use this opportunity today to speak about the eradication of child poverty. Many of my colleagues in here are also members of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Children and Equality. We spent a lot of time looking at ways and listening to external organisations about ways to eliminate child poverty and about political choices. Instead of giving €750 million of a VAT cut to restaurant chains, we could have introduced a second tier of child benefit. There are many examples where political choices are involved when we look at the eradication of child poverty. Almost 5,000 children are now living in emergency accommodation while we have increased our capital spending on defence by €660 million.

We know the long-term effects on children of living in poverty do not go away. It affects their emotional, social, educational and language development. Research done by Trinity College Dublin in 2023 shows that even a brief amount of time spent in child poverty will affect children for the rest of their lives. The Children's Rights Alliance says it takes four generations to break the cycle of child poverty. I have brought it up before that one fifth of children living in Ireland, which is a really rich country, do not have a decent standard of living. That is where a person can afford to buy a winter coat, a new pair of shoes or to replace broken furniture.

Child poverty is a stain on our society. I commend people and organisations like the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Barnardos and the front-line family support services that are working every day in all of our counties and parishes throughout the country but are particularly active and on whom we rely so much at this time of the year. They are in all of our areas and I pay special tribute to ones in my own area: Cornerstone, which was formerly Sligo Social Services, and Sligo Food Bank. They are led by volunteers and work every day to ensure that families are getting essential, basic provisions at this time of the year.

I urge our Government to not just talk about it and keep bringing up the same conversations about looking at ways to eradicate child poverty but have a really meaningful debate on it in this House.