The Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mr Brennan, is planning to introduce a child benefit payment in the next Budget targeted at the State's 66,000 poorest children.
While weekly child benefit payments are paid for all children, he is planning an additional "second-tier" payment for children in unemployed or low-wage households, which would allow for a more targeted approach to ending child poverty.
" At the moment we're looking at how to identify these families and how the scheme could operate," Mr Brennan said.
While there is an existing payment targeted at children in homes where families are in receipt of welfare, known as the Child Dependent Allowance, it has not been increased since 1994 and is worth around €19 a week.
Government officials have argued over the last decade that increasing this payment would result in a "welfare trap". Mr Brennan, however, said an additional child benefit payment would be "employment neutral".
The size of the payment has yet to be decided, but is likely to be a significant addition to the monthly child benefit, which is worth between €142 and €177 per child.
On a wider level, Mr Brennan said he wants to refocus the welfare system to "tackle issues behind the payments".
"Sometimes payments are just society's way of paying for the issue to go away. We need, for example, to smooth the transition from welfare to work. If you want to work or choose to work, you should be able to do it in a seamless way. I'm keen to match our payment function with out social policy function," he said.
Welfare traps needed to be identified, he said, and payments restructured to ensure the best interests of families and individuals were being addressed.
In the area of payments for lone parents, he said he was worried that in some cases the payment was preventing parents from living together.
"There may be better ways of dealing with this."
