About 62,000 children in Ireland living in poverty

About 62,000 children in the Republic of Ireland live in consistent poverty, a children's group has said.

Tanya Ward from the Children's Rights Alliance told RTÉ children who have lived through poverty up to the age of six were the most affected.

Consistent poverty means they are probably going to bed hungry, their family cannot afford new clothes and family outings to the zoo or cinema are not a possibility, Ms Ward said.

The alliance is launching a new Child Poverty monitor report.

It is the first in a series of reports that will analyse of child poverty across the country.

Root causes of poverty will be explored and and solutions will be drawn up to address issues.

These will include

• Educational disadvantage

• Social exclusion

• Accessing healthcare

• Homelessness

• Food poverty

• Income inadequacy

Ms Ward told RTÉ's Morning Ireland that children living in consistent poverty are very aware of their situation and that has lifelong consequences for them.

Ireland is out of step with the rest of Europe when it comes to hot school meals, Ms Ward said.

"Barnardos that have told us of stories where children in early years programmes have not eaten food and brought it home to feed their siblings.

"So children are very aware of this. If children lived through this, particularly if they live through it persistently, it has lifelong consequences for them."

She said there was a lack of national leadership on child poverty.

She said the Irish Department of Children does not have a dedicated unit working on child poverty.

She said this was something that would be beneficial to address the issues that exist.

She also pointed to Ireland's policy on hot school meals free meal scheme.

She said Ireland was "out of step" with the rest of Europe on hot school meals and that every school should benefit from a free meal scheme.

She said a free school meal encourages students to come into school and enables them to concentrate better in the classroom.