Barnardos welcomes the measures announced today by government. They will go some way to help families struggling to meet essential costs and help prevent children going without.
Barnardos CEO Suzanne Connolly said: “We know that childhood lasts a lifetime and from our experience the longer a child goes without and lives in deprivation and consistent poverty the bigger an impact it has on their current and future health, wellbeing and general development.
The measures we particularly welcome today include the €200 for lone parent families and the additional €100 for Back to School Allowance increase. They will relieve some financial pressures from families at risk of poverty. Additionally, the announcement to further expand the hot school meals is positive and will ensure more children get a decent meal every day.
Going forward, with the establishment of the Child Poverty and Wellbeing Unit the government needs to look to be more ambitious, and ensure that conditions exist where families can provide their children with a decent standard of living, this means avoiding once off measures, and instead looking towards longer term sustainable changes.”
ENDS
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