Child Poverty
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-18
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Michael Moynihan (FF), Cork North-West

The CSO surveys are hugely important as a basis on which to measure poverty. The investment the Government has made over the past number of budgets, not just those for 2024 and 2025 but also for 2026, and the social protection measures we have put in place, show that not just the Department of Social Protection but all Government Departments are very conscious of child poverty. We are very conscious of the long-term impacts on those children. We are trying to give them the best possible opportunity. You only get one childhood. My Department and Departments right across Government, particularly the Department of Social Protection, are making sure that we are investing as much as possible into capturing the reasons for child poverty. We are investing to make sure we are giving children the best possible opportunities.
The CSO documentation and the data we get through the survey on income and living conditions are hugely important in framing Government policy. This is driven from the Department of the Taoiseach to ensure we are doing everything that can be done across Government to tackle child poverty. I assure all Deputies in the House that we understand. We know that, when you meet parents and families who are experiencing child poverty, you can have all the statistics in the world but you need to be able to point to something that can get them from where they are to where they would like to be or to at least give them a roadmap. Everyone wants the best for their families. This is something that every one of us experiences. The Government is working extremely hard to tackle child poverty. We have seen reductions in the indicators over the last number of years.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-18