An EU policy of benchmarking child poverty needs to be urgently adopted, a major conference on child poverty heard today.
The conference, organised by the Children's Rights Alliance, heard that low child poverty rates are achieved in states where the distribution of income is more equitable and where government policy protects living standards rather than the market.
A study undertaken by the alliance comparing the social models or approaches to child poverty in wealthy countries identified four areas which are "en route" to the elimination of child poverty.
Dr John Sweeney, lecturer in human development at St Patrick's College in Drumcondra, said the "most reliable predictors of a low rate of child income poverty is the proportion of GDP a country devotes to public social expenditure".
He said all child benefit payments should be made to parents regardless of whether they are working or not.
This would target the "surprisingly large percentage" of children in poor households who may have parents who cannot realistically expect to earn sufficient amounts to rise above the poverty line due to problems such as poor health, domestic responsibilities, weak local labour markets and low skill levels, Dr Sweeney said.
Dr Sweeney also noted lone-parent families are at greatest risk of poverty. He said that in spite of this there seemed to be an "exceptional reluctance" to target income support at one-parent households.