Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I think it offers great potential and could be very useful.

A wonderful thing that was previously in the pipeline has been announced today and is coming to fruition. From next week, children's allowance will be paid to young adults over the age of 18 who are in full-time education. This is a critical intervention. It is an important payment of a considerable sum of money to families. It is a universal payment, in that everybody gets it, and it amounts to €140 per child, per payment. That is significant. Many children now start school at five years of age and there is wonderful educational merit in that. Anyone who knows anything about education knows it is a great development. The second thing is that many children do transition year, which in many instances has huge value. All of that amounts to a situation whereby many students aged 18 are still in second level education and move to third level a year or so later. The extending of the eligibility for the children's allowance is a very practical intervention in their lives. I congratulate my constituency colleague, the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, on this initiative. It is one of a number of reforms she has introduced but this is the one we need to celebrate today. It gets to every child and it is important.