An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-23
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

Actually, I would disagree with the Deputy's solution. What we did in the budget was child support payments for the lowest income, not the middle but the lowest income, We dramatically increased it and have done for the last two budgets. That is how you tackle poverty. It did reduce in the budget by any yardstick and objective. Over the last number of years, we brought in free primary school books and post-primary school books for children, which is a huge help to families. We have expanded and extended the free hot school meals. There is a universal childcare subsidy. There is a €280 new baby grant. Hospital inpatient charges were abolished. We have expanded free GP care and free contraception and we have done much more than that. In the forthcoming budget, we are going to focus very much on the child poverty question, as we did in the last budget. It is recognised that increasing child support payments and domiciliary care allowance is a very targeted way of helping those most in need, and that is what we intend to do.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:06+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-23