Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputy for his amendment but I will not be accepting it. I agree with him about giving children the best start in life. That is why we focused on the child support payment in particular in this budget and made record increases to it. I do have an issue - this is going to be a common theme for the evening - with reports in legislation. It is not something I agree with personally. There are other ways of getting the information and preparing the information. Deputy Hayes also has the support of the Parliamentary Budget Office in the Oireachtas in this regard.

Extending parent's benefit would follow on from extending parent's leave, which is a matter for the Department of children and the responsible Minister. The Minister, Deputy Foley, has lead legislative responsibility for parent's leave. We then have the responsibility for the associated benefit, which follows anything that has to do with the duration of the leave.

In this budget, as well as increasing the child support payment, we also secured a weekly increase of €10 on parent's benefit and adoptive benefit, which would bring the weekly rate to €299. That rate increase applies across all family leave, including maternity and paternity benefits.