Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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121. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if a response will issue to concerns raised by a person (details supplied) in respect of child poverty figures; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [58276/22]

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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As Minister of State with responsibility for social inclusion, I have a strong interest in addressing all forms of poverty and addressing child poverty is a Government priority. I am pleased to see the interest in poverty shown by the Transition Year student and brought to my attention by the Deputy.

The Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025 is the whole of Government strategy with the ambitious aim to reduce consistent poverty for the overall population to 2 per cent or less by 2025, and to make Ireland one of the most socially inclusive countries in the EU. The most recent official statistics on poverty from the CSO's Survey of Income and Living Conditions (SILC 2021) show that the rate of consistent poverty has fallen for the sixth consecutive year to 4.0%. The Government remains fully determined to continue this progress.

The numbers referred to in the email from the Deputy relate to the number at risk of poverty, which is a measure of relative income (60% of the median equivalised disposable income). The national social target for poverty reduction is based on consistent poverty, which is the combination of being at risk of poverty and experiencing material deprivation.

The current national child poverty target requires a 66% reduction in the number of children in consistent poverty by the end of 2020 (from its 2011 level of 107,000). Against the 2011 baseline, the number of children in consistent poverty has fallen by 45,000 (from 107,000 in 2011 to 62,000 in 2021) and the consistent poverty rate has fallen by 4.1 percentage points (from 9.3 per cent in 2011 to 5.2 per cent in 2021).

Social Protection Budgets over the past number of years have prioritised the introduction of measures that have had and will continue to have a direct and positive impact on poverty, and in particular on child poverty:

- Increases in weekly child-related payments (qualified child increases);

- Increases in the Working Family Payment thresholds aimed at supporting working families and ensuring that work pays;

- Improvements to means-testing of payments for lone parents;

- Increases in the Back-to-School Clothing and Footwear Allowance;

- Increases in the weekly rates of payment for all schemes;

- Introduction and expansion of hot school meals, in line with the Programme for Government commitment to ensure no child goes hungry;

- Increases in the earnings disregard for lone parents in receipt of One Parent Family Payment and Jobseeker Transition payments.

In this regard, Ireland has one of the most effective systems of social transfers in the EU at reducing income inequality and protecting people from being at risk of poverty.

In addition, the Government last month introduced the largest social welfare Budget in the history of the State and is supporting those most vulnerable with measures worth almost €2.2 billion. In this regard, recent post-budget analysis by the ESRI found that Budget 2023 combined with one-off measures to address cost of living pressures will be effective in protecting most low-income households against rising costs this winter.