Child Poverty
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-24
============================================================

Dara Calleary (FF), Mayo

We also look at the measurement of consistent poverty. That is taken from the Central Statistics Office's, CSO’s, indicator of consistent poverty. Our child poverty target is based on the CSO figures. The CSO's Survey on Income and Living Conditions, SILC, 2025 showed a decrease in consistent poverty from 8.5% to 7.8%. It also showed an increase in children experiencing enforced deprivation from 21.2% in 2024 to 19.6% in 2025. The social protection measures in budget 2025 and budget 2026 are not captured in those figures because there is a lag in terms of how those figures are measured. We are again in negotiations with the Department of public expenditure for a substantial child poverty package in the context of budget 2027.
They are in addition to the school meals programme - which, for a family with up to two children, can save up to €1,100 per year - the schools books programme and various other initiatives that are under way under other Departments.
We are very focused on this. We are seeing progress. Is it quick enough? No, absolutely not. The second-tier payment will be part of that. I reiterate that some of those who are promoting models that are being discussed and endorsed at the moment would leave families on lower incomes worse off. We cannot allow that situation.

---

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/2026-09-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:50+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-24