Child Poverty Dail Éireann — 2026-04-21 ============================================================ Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central I appreciate all the questions that have been asked. The Deputies have raised some important issues. Deputy Ardagh raised the issue of lone-parent families. It is correct that they can be particularly vulnerable at times to higher levels of deprivation or poverty. Child support payments are a very effective way to give additional supports. The latest budget saw a record increase of €8 for under-12s and €16 for children aged 12 and over, I think. We are going to continue to do that. That relates to the question about a second-tier payment. There are a number of mechanisms to get there. I will engage again with the Minister, Deputy Calleary on this for the next budget. The child poverty unit in the Department of the Taoiseach is engaging with all Departments but particularly the Department of Social Protection in terms of how we can increase income supports. The child support payment is a very direct and effective way to support. There are also means test thresholds we can look at as well to facilitate lone parents who are working to receive higher payments. The free books scheme and hot school meals scheme also help and facilitate lone-parent families. In some instances, the DEIS scheme is significant as well as DEIS Plus. We will continue in terms of the child support payments, higher income thresholds, access to fuel allowance, back to school clothing and footwear allowances. They were all expanded this year to about an extra 50,000 people. Some of those were lone parents. The free GP visit cards for everyone under eight, and better enhancements to the early childhood care and education schemes will all be supportive. We will engage with the organisations representing lone parents to see what more we can do to improve that situation. Deputy John Connolly raised a very important issue. I think €500,000 is too low. That probably came under the Department of children. It is too low. For years there have been problems in terms of children's playgrounds coming under different Departments. I absolutely agree that recreational space is vital to the well-being of any child. The Deputy mentioned Headford. Some areas of our cities historically never had enough green area provided. We can do more and can do better on that. I will keep an eye on that in the context of the next budget to enhance that fund. I will talk to the relevant Ministers, both in terms of children and disability but also in terms of allocations to local authorities more generally. Some of these initiatives suffer from pass-the-parcel between different Departments. The point is very well-made in terms of availability of play facilities. Play is key to child development. Children learn far more through play at an earlier age than through formal education so it is critically important. On the two-tier child benefit, we had a lot of discussion on it last year and I engaged with the Department of social protection, the Minister, Deputy Calleary and the Secretary General. One of the challenges was that under the model, a lot of existing families could lose out. We do not want that to happen. A lot of design work is under way. It is an open question as to whether we will go for a ring-fenced second tier or will continue to enhance child support payments, which have a very positive and immediate impact on child poverty rates. We are also looking at the cost of disability. The Minister has convened stakeholders' groups to consult on how a cost-of-disability payment would work, the extent of it, the limits and so on and who would benefit. That is not unrelated to child poverty either and could be a particular support to families of children with disabilities. In terms of DEIS plus, I do not like the phrase super league of poverty; that is unfair. We have the DEIS programme which is quite extensive and which we expanded significantly about two and a half years ago. It means a significant reduction in the pupil-teacher ratio in those schools, additional financial supports and other supports. The DEIS plus was set up with a view to having a targeted approach for very severely disadvantaged schools, even more than the DEIS itself. By definition it is not for every school. Targeting is important in the allocation of resources. There is actually something wrong if everybody gets it because that is not actually helping children who need it most. Politicians did not decide the list; it was independently decided. We can look at the methodology. I accept that sometimes we look at it and wonder how a particular school did not get in when another school did. We can look at the research and those who did the research to identify the schools that qualified for DEIS plus. There are significant issues in many communities - not all Government-created. We have to respond to and deal with them, and help the children who suffer as a result of particular background issues or whatever. DEIS plus is one further measure to assist children who are in very difficult situations to enable them to learn properly and to have some chance in life. That is what we are doing with the DEIS plus scheme. Deputy Ward asked about the equine centre in Clondalkin. I am a strong believer in equine centres. They can have positive therapeutic and recreational impacts for young people, in particular children. I am not sure if the Deputy was saying there an issue with the funding there. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-21/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:08+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-21