Ireland Is Experiencing A Hidden Child Poverty Crisis
Ireland Is Experiencing A Hidden Child Poverty Crisis
Text: Izzy Copestake
The government’s official poverty statistics don’t factor in housing costs.
In Ireland today, more than 225,000 children are living in poverty once housing costs are factored in. This is a reality that goes largely unseen in official statistics. According to new research by the ESRI and Community Foundation Ireland, one in five children are growing up in a household that cannot afford basic essentials after paying rent or mortgages. These families are being forced into impossible choices between heating, food, electricity and clothing after accommodation costs are paid. The research uses data from the Central Statistics Office’s Survey on Income and Living Conditions.
The Government’s poverty statistics currently assess households based only on income after taxes and welfare, without accounting for rent, which in many cases is the single largest expense. This has masked the growing hardship and levels of poverty faced by families, particularly for those renting or with large mortgages. The The Economic and Social Research Institute has warned that the situation is nearing levels seen during the post-crash austerity years.
“The Government’s official measures of poverty, and also its poverty targets, don’t account for housing costs. They just look at income after taxes and transfers from Government like social welfare payments. What our research shows is that housing costs are really important for looking at poverty rates, in particular for children,” said report co-author and assistant professor in economics at Trinity College Dublin, Barra Roantree.
Roantree explains that this is because many of the families most affected by this crisis are younger households with children, who are more likely to be renting privately or burdened by large, recent mortgages. Their incomes simply haven’t kept up with the cost of living. While wages and welfare payments may have risen slightly in cash terms, rising prices have outpaced that growth, leaving real incomes lower than they were just a few years ago. The result is a widening gap between what families earn and what they actually need to survive.
Some of that pressure has only been addressed by temporary supports, like energy credits and double child benefit payments. But these are only stopgaps, and as they’re phased out, the ESRI warns that families will face even greater financial strain unless the Government raises core welfare rates.
“As those once-off payments get withdrawn, which they’ll need to be, you’re going to see a drop in the incomes of lower-income households,” said Barra Roantree. The Children’s Rights Alliance is urging the Government to respond in Budget 2026 with targeted support and a new way of measuring poverty that finally acknowledges the impact of housing costs. As Tanya Ward, chief executive of the charity, puts it: “They are still dealing with the same number of children in poverty that they had during the recession… that’s unacceptable, it’s not good enough and it needs to change in The Budget 2026.”
