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	Budget 2014 needs to be &ldquo;poverty-proofed&rdquo; to protect vulnerable families, the chief executive of the Children&rsquo;s Rights Alliance said yesterday.</p>
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	Tanya Ward was speaking at the launch of the alliance&rsquo;s annual report card assessing the Government&rsquo;s commitments on children, which this year gave Government a fail grade in the category of child poverty.</p>
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	While cuts of &euro;136 million were made to child benefit in last year&rsquo;s budget, Ms Ward said &ldquo;money was not redirected into children&rsquo;s services . . . and that&rsquo;s what we&rsquo;re very concerned about is that we are directly taking money away from vulnerable families and using it to cover bank debt&rdquo;.</p>
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	Sheila Greene, professor and fellow emeritus in the school of psychology, Trinity College Dublin, described the Government&rsquo;s record in relation to child poverty as &ldquo;intolerable&rdquo;.</p>
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	&ldquo;We have moved, in terms of consistent poverty . . . from 6.3 per cent of Irish children in 2008 to 9.3 per cent in 2011 and we know things are getting worse,&rdquo; she said.</p>
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	<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: none; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: top;">&lsquo;Fairer in theory&rsquo;</strong></p>
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	Speaking in relation to proposals put forward in the Mangan report, Catherine McGuinness, a member of the Council of State who sits on the alliance&rsquo;s external assessment panel, said that &ldquo;in theory&rdquo; a universal child benefit payment that is taxed for those less in need is fairer than cutting child benefit across the board, but &ldquo;if you&rsquo;re doing that you must be sure that the money that&rsquo;s raised through taxation goes back to the vulnerable children and it doesn&rsquo;t just turn out to be another way of taking more money away from parents&rdquo;.</p>
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	Overall the Government was awarded a C grade. Ms Ward said that &ldquo;next year we want to see that grade improve&rdquo;.<a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2013/0219/1224330208426.html">http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2013/0219/1224330208426.html</a></p>
