The forthcoming Budget will be the first test of the Government's commitment to ending child poverty, an umbrella group representing children's interests has said.
Mr Ray Dooley, chief executive of the Children's Rights Alliance, was speaking following the publication of the alliance's pre-Budget submission. The alliance represents 72 interested organisations, including the ISPCC, Barnardos and the Irish Association of Young People in Care.
"This Budget will be the first full one since the new national anti-poverty strategy was launched earlier this year," said Mr Dooley. "In that, the Government committed itself to eliminating child poverty by 2007. So we will see just how serious it is when we see the choices Mr McCreevy makes."
The submission is modest in its demands, a fact acknowledged by Mr Dooley. "The drum-beat that has preceded this year's Budget is alarming," he said. "The talk is of cuts, so our focus is on calling on the Government to follow through on existing commitments."
The most important demand was that the Government honour its commitment to increase child benefit by €31.80 per month.
Child benefit is currently €117.60 per child per month for the first two children and €147 for the third and subsequent children.
"We are calling on the Minister for Health to honour his commitment in the Health Strategy to substantially expand medical-card eligibility for children and to commence, on a phased basis, the extension of the card to all children under the age of 18, beginning most urgently with those under five," said Mr Dooley.
He also called for adherence to the commitment in the Health Strategy to reduce to three months waiting time for all children for all medical treatments.
"The Government must keep the promises it has made to the country's children," Mr Dooley said. The alliance was optimistic that these Government commitments would be kept, given the economic climate, he added.
"We take the commitments at face value . . . The Budget is fundamentally an issue of choices made about the priorities given to services. Thousands of children remain in poverty, on waiting lists and without basic services. Children have a right to a childhood, and at the moment many will be into their adulthoods waiting for some of these services."
He said that delivering on commitments was a matter of political will. "The amount of money it would cost to increase the child benefit would be about the same as to finance the SSIA scheme next year. The question may have to be, do we keep the SSIAs or do we end child poverty? We do not think there should be any hesitation about the answer."
One innovative suggestion is for the Budget to be accompanied by a "child impact statement", to focus attention on how each decision would benefit children.
"The Department of Finance should withhold funding from Departments unless they have submitted child impact statements with all policy proposals," he said.
