Social Welfare Payments
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-24
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Shane Moynihan (FF), Dublin Mid-West

I thank the Minister. I do not for a second doubt his personal commitment, or that of the Taoiseach, to dealing with child poverty. When I look at the taxable payment that has been recommended by the ESRI, it has a lot of things going for it: its effectiveness; it could take up to 20,000 children out of poverty; it could eventually subsume the child support payment; and it could tackle a lot more of the children who are in poverty at the moment. It is simpler to introduce and it is much easier to understand as well.
In the round, as the Minister carries out that engagement with colleagues across the House and, I am sure, the ESRI on those proposals, I encourage him to consider that as a possibility for doing what we all want, namely, to really make a dent in the journey of bringing down child poverty in this country.

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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