Sir, – Your front-page headline “Up to 230,000 children lack basic clothing and food” is deeply troubling (News, September 5th). Sarah Burns’s concisely stark news analysis of the ESRI’s newly published research is complemented well by Denise Charlton’s striking opinion piece “More children deprived and families left behind” on the same day.
What troubles me most is that the research evidence today could have said something better, had other decisions been made for last year’s budget.
As a former minister for children and youth affairs, I understand well that budget time is one of making hard choices between all the things we’d like to do, given the resources available.
Last year at this time, ESRI research demonstrated the potential impact of different ways to reduce child deprivation and poverty. Some of the tables were particularly compelling, especially those comparing the estimated impact of budgetary choices between a) a universal increase in child benefit by €38 per month, b) increases for a ‘qualified child” (many recipients located below the poverty line) by 56 per cent, and c) by introducing a second tier of child income support to those children who need it most, with the potential to lift 40,000 children out of poverty.
The analysis demonstrated that the estimated reduction of children experiencing poverty by payment of a targeted child income support, the “second tier” option, was significantly higher than any of the other policy choices.
While the Government did increase payments for children last year, it did not follow this policy choice.
It comes as no surprise, then, that the ESRI’s new research shows that there are almost 30,000 more children today going without basic items and activities for a comfortable life in the State, than in 2022.
In our prosperous country in 2024, which Government choices influenced alongside the hard work of Irish citizens and residents, the evidence has mounted that some policy choices are better than others for some of our most vulnerable children.
I sincerely hope that the right, evidence-based decisions will be made in this year’s budget. For the sake of our future generations and our country as a whole. – Yours, etc,
Dr KATHERINE ZAPPONE,
(Honorary Fellow,
Educational Disadvantage Centre,
Dublin City University;
Visiting Research Fellow,
WiSE Centre for Economic Justice,
Glasgow Caledonian
University;
Minister for children and youth affairs (2016-2020),
Dublin 2.