Elaine Loughlin: Untargeted payments do not help to tackle child poverty

The country is awash with money. Party manifestos published over the course of this election campaign contain proposals around how to continue to spend billions of euro with almost unbridled abandon. 

And yet tonight more than 4,500 children will go to sleep in emergency homeless accommodation.

Homeless children stay in cramped conditions with no appropriate cooking, washing, or play facilities. This results in accidents or traumas that wouldn’t normally happen if these children were housed in a family home, and it delays development, according to a report published by Temple Street Children’s Hospital.

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In a time of general prosperity, the UN estimates that more than 69m children live in poverty in some of the world’s richest countries. Ireland is no different, with 260,773 children experiencing deprivation here in 2023, a rise of more than 30,000 in a year.

It means that one in five children are living in a household unable to afford goods and services that are considered the norm for society — such as being unable to afford a new pair of school shoes or not being able to replace broken furniture.

It feels so wrong that the wealthiest families in our society, who do not need — or in many cases, want — two double child benefit payments, will receive the same bonus supports as those who will again rely on St Vincent de Paul Christmas food hampers this year.

Like Ms Creighton, you do not have to be a billionaire or even a millionaire to feel a certain sense of unease around the multiple financial sweeteners that have been landing in bank accounts.

A total of 10 lump sum payments will be paid before Christmas to support households across the country.

Some of these will be targeted, such as the €400 working family payment lump sum that was given out to 46,000 households earlier this month.

While this support and some of the other payments, like the €300 fuel allowance boost, do provide vulnerable families and individuals with a cash injection to get them over the cold winter nights, and will somewhat ease the cost of Christmas, these once-off (and often ad-hoc) bonus supports do nothing to address the crippling and endemic deprivation that has a direct impact on whether or not our children reach their full potential.

Lifting one child out of poverty means that child is more likely to finish his or her education and gain employment: They are less likely to end up in prison or suffer from drug addiction.

On a macro level, addressing poverty benefits the economy and reduces pressure on the health service, the justice system, and other public services.

Bringing about meaningful improvements and long-term change to the lives of the most vulnerable and deprived children requires whole-of-government buy-in and substantial investment over a sustained period of time, not piecemeal once-off payments. Certainly not universal once-off payments.

The introduction of a second tier of child benefit is one such measure that could take more than 40,000 children out of poverty in this country.

The introduction of this reform — recommended by the Commission on Taxation and Welfare, the National Economic and Social Council, and the Children’s Rights Alliance among others — would cost around €700m per year.

To put that in context, it cost €415m to pay bonuses to those receiving child benefit; fuel allowance; disability support; and the working families support at the start of this month. This does not include the second batch of once-off supports due next month.

Claire Keane, an associate research professor at The Economic and Social Research Institute, said “untargeted” cost-of-living measures, such as the energy credits and double child benefit payments announced as part of Budget 2025, would have been enough to pay for a second tier of child benefit.

In other countries, where social protection has been radically overhauled or substantially increased, children have benefitted.

An ambitious reform of social protection policies in Canada has lifted around 250,000 children out of poverty and has increased household expenditure on childcare, school supplies, shelter, food, and clothing. The new child benefit scheme introduced in 2016 replaced a complicated system of income tax credits and instead provides generous monthly transfers to low- and moderate-income households. Transfer levels are highest for the lowest-earning households, and are sensitive to the number of children and those with additional needs.

The establishment of a child poverty unit in the Department of the Taoiseach by the outgoing government was a welcome step in acknowledging the rift that exists between those who are benefiting from the country’s buoyant economy and others who continue to be left behind.

But the next government must substantially expand its ambitions. It must prioritise the commitment set down in Bunreacht na hÉireann, in which the State “recognises and affirms the natural and imprescriptible rights of all children and shall, as far as practicable, by its laws protect and vindicate those rights”.

As Unicef states, ending child poverty and its consequences is a matter of basic rights and justice.