Budget creates ‘a poverty trap’ for children in poor families

FINANCE Minister Brian Lenihan has opened a poverty trapdoor for poor children by introducing a series of damaging tax and welfare system changes for young families across the country, a leading group has warned.

The Children’s Rights Alliance (CRA), which acts as an umbrella group for over 90 non-governmental organisations for children’s rights in Ireland, was hitting out at the supplementary budget. It said despite some positive measures, the budget had potentially damaged the future of a generation of children.

According to the group’s budget analysis, released yesterday, Mr Lenihan’s decision to bring families on the minimum wage into the tax net means a parent on the poverty line will now be forced to pay e7 a week or e28 a month to the State. And warning that the move will create a “poverty trap for poor working families” who are now faced with the reality that “it makes more financial sense for parents to claim the dole than go to work”, the CRA said an increase in child poverty is inevitable.