Brennan queries claims about level of child poverty

Claims about the level of child poverty in the State were challenged by Minister for Social and Family Affairs Séamus Brennan.

Dan Boyle (Green Party, Cork South Central) said that Ireland had ranked 22nd in a Unicef study of 25 industrial nations. The rate of child poverty for Ireland, the UK and the US was 15 per cent of the population. The Nordic equivalent, in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark, was 5 per cent.

"Aside from the publication of the action plan on social inclusion, the Minister should set clear targets to reduce the figure of 15 per cent to 5 per cent in a short time. He has not done so to date."

Mr Brennan said the study used figures from 2000. "We should keep that in mind." Mr Boyle said the situation had not changed that much.

Mr Brennan said Ireland had changed dramatically since the figures were produced. "While the deputy is right to say the study places us as 22 out of 24 in regard to material wellbeing, it puts us eighth in terms of educational well-being, seventh in family and peer relationships, fourth in behaviour and risks for children, and fifth out of 21 for subjective wellbeing.

"In almost all the other measures in the study, our children come out close to the top, which brings us back to the question of how we measure poverty."

He said that in the Budget, the Government had allocated €240 million for a range of measures. "For the first time since 1994, we put an extra €60 million into child dependant allowances with the result that the child benefit increase of €10 a month across the board was not the same for the one-third of children at the bottom rung of that ladder. They go an extra €22 a month." Earlier, Mr Brennan said that in the Unicef report the relative income indicator was 50 per cent of average household income. As it related just to the income a household received, it did not include other resources a household might have, or have access to, which kept them out of actual poverty.

Mr Boyle said the Minister should refrain from his "apples and oranges" argument. "This is an international study, a comparison of relative poverty rates."