Proposals for a Child Poverty Budget

Our long-standing failure as a society to adequately engage with the issue of child poverty, and drive substantial and permanent reductions in it, is building long-term problems.  If Government is truly serious about addressing child poverty, then it must address income adequacy for families in Budget 2025.  Child poverty is essentially an issue of low-income families.   1 in 7 children in Ireland are affected.   This figure highlights the scale of such households across the State.  Budget 2025 must be the first of a series of Budgets focussed on delivering for children and their families.  

Budget 2025 – a child poverty budget?

Child poverty solutions hinge on issues such as adequate adult welfare rates, decent rates of pay and conditions for working parents, and adequate and available public services. Child benefit also remains a key route to tackling child poverty. It is of particular value to those families on the lowest incomes.

Adequate adult welfare rates are essential to address child poverty in families on fixed incomes. If we are to take poverty, including child poverty, seriously, we must invest in adequate incomes. Core social welfare rates must increase by €25 in Budget 2025.  Income adequacy cannot be addressed by one-off measures, a targeted approach that includes adequate levels of social welfare rates for households on fixed incomes, and decent rates of pay and conditions, and expansion of eligibility of certain welfare supports for working families is required.

Government, in its programme plan for child wellbeing has identified six areas for early action.  Social Justice Ireland has a series of proposals covering each of the six areas for Budget 2025.

Income supports and joblessness

In Budget 2025, Social Justice Ireland is calling for:

• A minimum €25 increase in core weekly rates of social welfare and a commitment to benchmarking core social welfare rates to 27.5 per cent of average weekly earnings.
• An increase of €50 in the monthly Child Benefit Payment.  Child benefit remains a key route to tackling child poverty and is of particular value to those families on the lowest incomes.
• An increase to the Qualified Child Allowance for children under 12 by €6 and children over 12 by €11.
• An Increase the Direct Provision weekly adult allowance by €50.
• The Living Wage has an important role to play in addressing the persistent income inequality and poverty levels in our society. Budget 2025 should endorse this initiative, include it in all public sector supplier contracts and introduce a time-limited subsidy to allow small businesses to accelerate its introduction.
• The introduction of a system of Refundable Tax Credits in 2025 to allow low income workers who do not earn enough to use their full credit to have the unused portion “refunded”, and support their ability to deal with increasing living costs. Making tax credits refundable would make Ireland’s tax system fairer, address part of the working poor problem, and improve the living standards of a substantial number of low income workers and their families.
• An increase the PAYE credit and Earned Income credit by €5 per week in 2025.
• Investment in a financial literacy programme aimed at school children and their families.

Early learning and childcare

In Budget 2025, Social Justice Ireland is calling for:

• An investment of 0.1% of GNI* in Early Childhood Care and Education and build this investment each year to 2030 to support staff professionalisation, expansion of ECCE provision through the Irish language, and investment in non‐contact ECCE time.
• An increase of €1 per house in the affordable childcare subsidy for children under three.
• An additional two weeks paternity leave.
• An additional two weeks of paid parental leave.
• An increase in the resources available for the regulation of childminders.

Reducing the cost of education

In Budget 2025, Social Justice Ireland is calling for:

• A target of keeping average class sizes below 20 and reducing the Pupil‐Teacher Ratio (PTR) further with a special focus on primary level and DEIS schools.
• An investment of €100m to increase the provision of school places for students with Special Educational Needs in both mainstream schools and special schools.
• €15m to support the continued expansion of the DEIS programme in Budget 2025.
• Restoration of the Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance to 2011 levels.
• Increased funding for Schools Meals Programme by ten per cent.
• €15m to fund school places, programmes and supports for students with special education needs. 
• An increase in capitation grants at both primary and secondary level by 5 per cent.
• An extension of the JCSP Library project to post primary DEIS schools.
• An increase of €1,000 in the maintenance grant for full-time students at third level.

Family homelessness

In Budget 2025, Social Justice Ireland is calling for:

• Expansion of the remit of Housing First in Budget 2025 to homeless families accessing emergency accommodation, and that Government introduce a limit to the amount of time a family may spend in Family Hubs as well as other forms of emergency housing.
• A target of 20 per cent of all housing stock be social housing by 2030. This would equate to an additional 239,918 social housing units to be delivered in the next six years, starting with an increase of €1.75bn in capital expenditure in Budget 2025.
• A restructuring of the Rent Tax Credit to a Renters’ Grant in Budget 2025.

Pathways to access the services children and families need

In Budget 2025, Social Justice Ireland is calling for:

• Additional funding to Tusla for child protection and increased social provision for children and families.
• Sufficient resources to support the delivery of the National Action Plan for the EU Child Guarantee.
• An investment of €600m from surplus windfall revenue into Sláintecare infrastructure with a focus on Enhanced Community Care in Budget 2025 to improve access to health care services.
• The expansion of the Enhanced Community Care Programme to alleviate pressure on acute services and ensure treatment is provided at the appropriate level of need.
• Sufficient resources to provide Universal Access to GP Care while expanding the number of GP and Practice Teams in line with the shift towards Primary Care & Community Based services envisaged in Sláintecare.
• Investment in the full implementation of the Sharing the Vision policy (including addressing staffing issues).
• Increased investment in Youth Services across the country.

Participation in arts, culture and sports opportunities

In Budget 2025, Social Justice Ireland is calling for:

• An additional €2m to increase investment in sports and recreation facilities, particularly in disadvantaged areas.
• An additional investment of €5m in funding for the Arts Council to embed arts and cultural participation as part of the ECCE framework. This investment would begin to address the large disparities in arts participation between children from different socio‐economic backgrounds highlighted in the Growing up in Ireland study.

Download Social Justice Ireland's child poverty proposals for Budget 2025 here.