Taoiseach Simon Harris has said that “exciting” things can be done to tackle child poverty in Budget 2025, but ruled out a two-tier child benefit.
The Fine Gael leader said he had met with officials from the child poverty unit on Tuesday to discuss measures to help children in need.
An ESRI report found that the number of children deprived of basic essentials such as clothes had risen to 230,000 children in 2023, an increase of 30,000 children compared to 2022.
Speaking at the Ploughing Championships in Co Laois, Mr Harris said: “I’m not happy with child poverty rates in this country. Yes, I can point to statistics to show progress. I have no intention of doing that.
“There’s too many children that are hungry in Ireland, there’s too many children who get a hot school meal during the school term, but don’t get fed during the summer. There’s what we call ‘holiday hunger’.”
He said that there needs to be targeted measures in the budget to tackle child poverty, but added that there will be “space” for universal measures.
“But I am really clear on this, and I genuinely am clear, and I want to assure you, whether it’s new energy or not, I really want to assure you that I do want to see specific measures in this budget around the children most in need, and I met with my officials in the department today in relation to that.
“I think we can do exciting, impactful things in Budget 2025 to help when it comes to child poverty.”
Asked whether he thinks there should be a two-tier child benefit, as suggested by the authors of the ESRI report, Mr Harris said: “I certainly don’t rule out the idea of having two rates of child benefit, but I do rule out being able to do it in the budget, because I don’t believe even administratively, it would be possible to do it in this budget.
“I do believe there’s a roadmap to how you got there, quite frankly, and I’m not getting ahead of myself and other government ministers, but if you’re asking me my view, I think it’s really important that we have a universal benefit that’s paid to all children or paid to all parents in this country.
“There are costs associated with having a child, and we value supporting the next generation. There are also children, though, who are more in need, and we have to look at how we best help them.
“Now, we have a number of ways that we already help: The working family payment is one, the qualified child allowance is another.
“I believe they’re the two most effective tools if you want to lift people out of child poverty, and over time, and not in this budget, but in the lifetime of another government, could you actually see such payments form a new rate of child benefit paid to children most at need? I think you could.”
Mr Harris also hit out at Sinn Fein’s suggestion to spend one billion euro of the Apple tax funds on disadvantaged communities.
He said he believes it should be spent on housing, water and infrastructure but emphasised the funds can “only be spent once”.
“I’ve noticed a new thing developing with Sinn Fein where they tried to divide communities, and they tried to classify communities. You can have an asylum centre in your community because we’ve classified you as such, but you won’t because we’ve classified you as something else. Let’s not divide Ireland.
“This is a small country, a country bound by community and fairness, and we will, as a government, put in place a roadmap as to how we best believe that that 14 billion or thereabouts can be spent – but it can only be spent once, so let’s keep count of how many times Sinn Fein tries to spend it.”
