Child Poverty

Full Transcript
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I am representing the Joint Committee on Social Protection,
Community and Rural Development and the Islands. The Cathaoirleach, Deputy Naughten, is
not available today and I am delighted to appear on his behalf and on behalf of the committee.
I will start first by referencing the long-awaited policy on the islands that was released
recently. It is a substantial piece of work that was eagerly awaited. If we are serious about
maintaining a viable population on our offshore islands, substantial supports need to be put in
place so that people can live their lives in a way that preserves the unique tradition and unique
heritage that we have on our offshore islands.

I want to turn to the committee’s core work, which is poverty. We have set out ambitious
targets in the roadmap for social integration to tackle poverty. On our committee we strongly
feel that you tackle poverty by going after it where you find it. That is predominantly among
children, in particular those of lone parents. I very much welcome that the Taoiseach mentions
in his opening statement that he wishes to make child poverty and well-being a core theme of
the budget. He has committed to setting up a child poverty and well-being programme office
within his Department. My committee made a number of recommendations in this area in our
pre-budget submission: increasing the qualified child payment for under-12s, raising qualified
child increases, QCIs, for under-12s; adequately providing social welfare support for those children most at risk of poverty; considering the extension of the jobseeker’s transitional payment,
particularly for lone parents; and reducing the jobseeker’s replacement rate, particularly among
lone parents, by increasing in-work measures, for example, childcare subsidies and housing assistance payments. We know it is not all about direct transfers within the social welfare system.

The committee called for the long-standing Green Party policy of school meals to be provided
to every child in the State. We also called for the Government to consider making the universal
child benefit payment, which is made to other children within the State, available to people in
direct provision, where we know there is a great deal of poverty.

The Taoiseach:
I just want to join Deputy Ó Cathasaigh in welcoming the new policy on the islands. It was
actually kicked off quite some time ago by Senator Kyne when he was a Minister of State. It is
great that that is done now. The important thing now is to implement it.

On poverty, I have not had a chance to see the committee’s submission, but if the Deputy
could make sure I got it, that would be great. I would agree with the Deputy that, if we are
serious about reducing child poverty – and we are – we have to deal with it where it is. It is
particularly high among one-parent families and low-income families. There is lots we can do,
for example, a move towards the living wage, which we are doing. The welfare package in the
budget should reflect the objective of reducing child poverty. Reducing childcare costs is part
of that, although we need to double down on increasing capacity. People being able to get a
childcare place has become as big an issue as the cost of childcare. There is also the question
of getting people into education and training as well as into activation measures. What the unit
in my Department is doing is looking at the whole menu of actions that we could take and trying to find out which ones are the most effective and what they would cost. As well as that, it
is having a look at all the pilots that have been done down the years – we are all familiar with
some really good pilot programmes that have never been mainstreamed – and trying to identify
a few of those that were very successful so as to make them mainstream rather than doing more
pilots, if that makes any sense.