Child poverty and inequality
Deputy Ennis condemns rising child poverty amid tax surpluses and local deprivation; the Tánaiste agrees child poverty remains too high and says recent Government measures may not yet appear in the data.
The ESRI recently published a report which highlighted the number of children living in households below the poverty line rose to 200,000 in 2024. All the while, this Government boasts about tax surpluses. We are told that the money is being kept aside for a rainy day. For those families and children, it is raining and it is pouring. In my constituency, we see billions running through the IFSC while right next door on Sheriff Street, where my family still lives, there are people who cannot even afford to put food on the table. These levels of widening inequality are not inevitable. They are a choice, and they are a choice being made by the Government. The Government reported a budget surplus of €23.2 billion in 2024. When we have 200,000 children living below the poverty line, we do not have a budget surplus; we have a bad accountant. What real, targeted and meaningful measures will the Government take in budget 2027 to reduce the scandalous rate of child poverty in this country?
Comment on this
I thank Deputy Ennis for raising the issue of child poverty and for raising it in a very real way in relation to his community and his constituency, including Sheriff Street and the area he represents in Dáil Éireann. What I am not going to do is get into a back-and-forth on statistics and reports, etc. The point is that child poverty is still too high. I agree with that. It is true that the ESRI data probably has not yet seen the benefit of some Government measures that we took, most particularly in the previous budget, but that is not the point. No matter what figure one wants to land on, it is too high. I accept that. What measures are we going to take? We will have to take quite a number of them, but the working family payment and child support payments have been a useful way of targeting resources at those most in need. Continued investment in youth services, education and early years education is also really important. There is a child poverty unit in the Department of An Taoiseach. I must say, in a completely non-political way, that officials and experts now working on child poverty are providing advice to Government which is useful and informed. The child poverty and well-being summit, which will also produce a report, will hopefully give good guidance to this House.