Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-24
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Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow

I thank Deputy Ennis for raising the issue of child poverty and for raising it in a very real way in relation to his community and his constituency, including Sheriff Street and the area he represents in Dáil Éireann. What I am not going to do is get into a back-and-forth on statistics and reports, etc. The point is that child poverty is still too high. I agree with that. It is true that the ESRI data probably has not yet seen the benefit of some Government measures that we took, most particularly in the previous budget, but that is not the point. No matter what figure one wants to land on, it is too high. I accept that. What measures are we going to take? We will have to take quite a number of them, but the working family payment and child support payments have been a useful way of targeting resources at those most in need. Continued investment in youth services, education and early years education is also really important. There is a child poverty unit in the Department of An Taoiseach. I must say, in a completely non-political way, that officials and experts now working on child poverty are providing advice to Government which is useful and informed. The child poverty and well-being summit, which will also produce a report, will hopefully give good guidance to this House.

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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