An investment of over €100 million is needed in Budget 2024 to end child poverty.
The Children's Rights Alliance (CRA) is calling on the Government to prioritise the issue as part of End Child Poverty Week.
There are currently 92,000 children in Ireland who are living in "consistent" poverty, which can lead to significant damage to their physical and mental well-being.
On Newstalk Breakfast, CRA spokesperson Julie Ahern said the organisation is calling on Government to make Budget 2024 a "children's budget".
"There are certain things governments can do," she said. "Poverty is not inevitable – it's a result of political choices."
"Making the right choices now, at a really critical time, could really have an impact on the lives of children who we know are going through poverty at the moment."
Education
Ms Ahern said education is one of the best ways to "break the cycle of disadvantage".
"Investing in crucial education supports will be key, such as ensuring that we have education welfare officers to support children and have homeschool liaison teachers to support children to access and stay in school," she said.
"Then also to be tackling the cost of education and introducing free secondary school books because we know free primary school books last year has worked so well for families and put money directly back into the pockets of those who are experiencing poverty.
"We've heard from the minister that she would like to look at secondary school books.
"We've urged Government to move on that because it is a very effective measure when it comes to tackling the cost of education."
'Head above water'
The CRA is also calling on Government to provide greater income support for families in poverty.
"We're calling on governments to look at the Qualified Child Increase – that's the payment made to families that are in receipt of social welfare – and to make sure that the Qualified Child Increase is increased enough to make sure families have enough to keep their heads above water," she said.
"That would be ensuring that there's an increase of €10 for the over 12s, and €15 for the over 12s."
TUSLA
Ms Ahern said TUSLA – the child and family agency – is "really critical" and often gets "forgotten about in the context of poverty".
"We know from over the summer months, there's a lot of problems currently ongoing with TUSLA," she said.
"They're really struggling in terms of ensuring that they have enough social workers and enough foster placements, and there's been chronic underinvestment, particularly in foster carers.
"We think that there needs to be a focus on increasing the Foster Care Allowance and ensuring that TUSLA has enough to maintain itself.
"They're working incredibly hard with some of the most vulnerable families, and at the moment, they are struggling to meet the need.
"We think the Government really could make a difference if they really were to focus and target their investments in this budget."
All this week on Newstalk, we will be highlighting child poverty as part of End Child Poverty Week, which takes place between Monday 11 September - Friday 15 September.
