Mr. Rónán Hession:

As I am sure the Deputy knows, the working family payment is constructed differently.

The typical social welfare payment will have a payment to the customer and then there is a top-up if they have dependent adults or children. Our working family payment is a different method. There is a threshold for a particular family size and 60% of the difference between income and that threshold is received. It is a different way of paying the money. It is not intended to have an additional child support payment element to it.

When we look to see what we need to do to support children in a budget, for example, we always look at both elements. We always look at what we need to do on CSP, which covers about 330,000 children, and on the working family payment, which covers about 100,000 children. There is some overlap. For example, people on the one-parent family payment can get both. The Deputy is correct that there is no child support payment element to the working family payment. It does, though, try to deliver a financial benefit through a different formula. The change in the budget was a €6 increase, which means about €90 million extra will be going to about 48,000 families.