Budget 2023 must focus on lifting people out of poverty, says Green Party

The Green Party will seek targeted boosts to key welfare payments alongside across-the-board increases in October’s budget.

Minister of State Joe O’Brien, who has responsibility for the Government’s roadmap for social inclusion, said significant interventions were needed to hit the Coalition’s target of reducing the consistent poverty rate from 5.6 per cent to 2 per cent by 2025.

“We have to do something different to what we usually do if we want to lift more people out of poverty. The regular budgetary process of throwing a few quid across most payments won’t get us down to there,” he said.

Mr O’Brien will on Monday launch an Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) report on poverty reduction, work and social welfare, which he commissioned to “elicit more specific pathways” to reduce consistent poverty and at-risk-of-poverty (AROP) rates. It found increasing key welfare packages aimed at children, older people and low-paid workers by a net €1 billion would reduce child poverty by 3.3 per cent and overall poverty by 1.5 per cent.

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“I’d be very much advocating the findings of this report when I’m involved in the budgetary process,” Mr O’Brien told The Irish Times — in particular the working family payment and the qualified child payment.

Come budget time, he said, “we should pay serious attention to what the report is recommending and I would openly say we need to consider heavy investment in those two payments.”

“The message is there has to be an increase in everything, but we would be very wise to skew the weighting of these payments towards these ones that are particularly effective at lifting people out of poverty.”

As the Coalition looks towards next month’s Summer Economic Statement (SES), which will set the parameters for Budget 2023, demands are coming for additional spending to offset the cost-of-living crisis and achieve wider political and policy goals — as well as pressure to move another package of measures before the budget.

Some senior figures downplayed talk of a rift between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, saying there had been no discussion on a tax and welfare package yet at Cabinet or leader level.

However, others recognised differences within the Government parties on targeting measures towards those on lower incomes, or more universally as many middle-income households are under financial pressure. One Fianna Fáil source said targeted supports best prevent people going into poverty, and that cost of living impacts on the unemployed and lower-income workers particularly, “whether they get up early or work nights”. A source said fuel allowance and pension payments would be on the table.

Another senior source argued the SES could be used to indicate that substantial assistance would be coming in the budget on household costs. “If that doesn’t signal a policy shift, you go into months of debating how to cut up a pie that will not address any of those issues in a substantive way”.