The Government could lift 55,000 children out of poverty immediately if it introduced a top-up payment of €285 a month to those most in need. Photograph: Bryan O'Brien
The real headline from today’s budget is what will, yet again, not be in it. For the 13th year in a row, a Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil-led Government will fail to get its act together to deliver the single greatest human rights imperative in Ireland: a second tier of child benefit targeted at the most vulnerable of our children.
This failure now amounts to culpable corporate negligence – the knowing neglect by the State of 55,000 kids. That’s the number who would be lifted out of poverty immediately if the Government introduced a top-up payment of €285 a month for the children most in need. It’s roughly the population of Limerick.
This measure is, by the Government’s own admission, entirely affordable.
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