Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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It is a significant amount of money.

The other issue that has been a concern to me is that our focus is the need to support families. Every child growing up is potentially a worker and every worker is a contributor. Most people contribute from their 20s to their 60s. Some are contributing much later; way beyond that. For the bulk, those are the years they are contributing. If our population begins to decline, then we as a country either need to bring more people in or our Social Insurance Fund is going to decline. Therefore, I have to say that I welcome all the child supports and the child benefit. People have argued about means testing it. There are many good, logical, economic reasons why that is not the simple answer. The one thing we need in this country in the long-term, long beyond when some of us will be around, is children growing up and contributing to the economy. If somebody is now ten years of age, they could be contributing to the economy in 70 years' time. If I live that long, I will be 140-odd. Please God. My point is it is a long-term measure. Everybody keeps focusing on the fact that there will be more pensioners. We know that and there is not much we can do about it, because that is the system.