Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

My comments are in a similar vain. Can the Minister provide the last year's figure on the number of individuals who are not paid by their employer and could be affected by the provision? I refer to those who are on maternity leave but have not been paid by their employer that would be caught by this new tax and would have a reduced benefit as a result. Has the Minister statistics that can show the magnitude of the change?

Deputy Michael McGrath spoke of the circumstances whereby an individual is not paid by her employer and the tax credit is taken by her spouse. Last year I raised the issue through written parliamentary questions. The Department has started a trend of taxing social welfare payments and I mentioned the matter at a meeting of the Oireachtas Select Sub-Committee on Finance last year. I said then that I assumed that the Department would go after maternity benefit but the Minister did not pick up on my question at the time. It is not as if the tax has fallen out of the sky. We all knew that people who were paid by their employer benefitted through the taxation system from the non-taxation of the maternity benefit. It is not something that landed on the Minister's desk in the past couple of months and he reacted by saying "Oh my God, we need to stop this now." The reason I say that is because the move was well known, established and accepted but not everybody gets that.

It was acceptable because the State did not provide adequately for child-bearing mothers. This is a tax on childbirth. There are no supports for those who have a moderate income in terms of the costs associated with bringing children into the world. Costs can vary depending on how much one wants to spend, but there are certain costs associated with the birth of a child. I have gone through it almost every year for the past six years and know all about it. It is not a cheap business, so to speak. The reason maternity benefit was not taxed was it was paid in recognition of the fact that there were prams, cots, sterilizers, nappies, clothes and so on to be bought. It was to be a support for those in that position.

This is a cruel taxation measure. I ask the Minister to outline the revenue he expects to generate in the taxation of child benefit. Not all mothers were in employment or paid by their employers; therefore, not all mothers benefited, but even in the case of those who did, it should be left as it stands. It is not as if they are sitting at home twiddling their thumbs. The child they have brought into the world is completely dependent on them for survival in the coming weeks and months. It is a small token that should be left as it stands. The same applies to adoptive benefit. Health and safety benefit, for mothers who can be accommodated out of work as a result of having to rear their child, presents another issue.

I ask the Minister to give the statistics for the numbers he believes will be affected by this measure, the revenue he expects to generate this year and the reason he is doing it this year and not last year when he started to attack, so to speak, some social welfare benefits. Why has he decided to focus on these benefits?