Lynn Ruane (Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I apologise that I missed my name when it was called earlier. The sound went on me and by the time I got it back it was too late. Many of the questions I had intended to ask have been covered. However, I am always confused by what does not seem to come up very often, especially from a poverty perspective and also when we discuss social welfare.

At some point over the past decade or so, the children's allowance was linked to a child attending school. It is as though we have automatically accepted this is the case, when it is supposed to be a universal payment. It was never about education. Some of the poorest women in some of the most poorly resourced communities often experience children dropping out of school young, at 15, 16 or 17 years of age, before they have completed the leaving certificate. We seem to have accepted the policy that if people cannot get the children's allowance form signed by a school to state the child is in school the children's allowance is stopped. This policy impacts some of the poorest families and communities that are already struggling to keep their children engaged in the education system. Perhaps One Family or the Society of St. Vincent De Paul have experience of this. I would love to know the views of the witnesses on this and why it has not come up as a contentious point. It has worked its way into our policy on how we pay children's allowance. A household with high educational attainment receives a universal payment with much less of a risk of the children dropping out of school or having difficulties in school. They are probably from professional backgrounds. We have this universal payment that becomes contingent on your child remaining in the education system. Obviously there is a desire to keep children in the education system. Mothers never want children to leave education but it is not always possible to keep them in it and somehow, we have allowed the children's allowance to be attached to it. Do the witnesses see this as an issue with regard to the discussion on child poverty? I would love to know the witnesses' views on this point.