Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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It is a few bob in people’s pockets and it is the same thing with the Christmas bonus. People go shopping. There are always pressures at Christmas time and it does help.

The Deputy also mentioned the child benefit. He is correct that we need to support families, including working families, and children. In this regard, the hot school meals programme has been very successful. After our last call, 900 schools were interested. About 400 have not expressed an interest but we are engaging with them. The plan is to have a hot school meal provided in every primary school by the end of 2025. This is on track. I am very keen on providing hot school meals to children. It helps with their educational attainment. We have set up a fund of €1.3 million to address holiday hunger. We are considering a pilot scheme to determine how to help children who do not have the benefit of a good meal when they are not at school.

The core weekly social welfare rates are going up by €12, focusing on lone parents and on tackling child poverty. The child support payment is to be increased, going up by €4 per week for those under 12 and €8 per week for those over 12. The increases will mean the payments will be €50 per week for the under-12s and €62 for the other recipients. That is a good support for low-income families with children.

There is a €60 increase in the working family payment threshold. We are introducing a newborn grant of an additional double child benefit - a payment of €280. On 1 January, you will get the normal €140 and an additional double payment of €280. That will be a help. Now that I am a grandmother, I see the price of buggies and such things. They are not cheap and there are plenty of costs involved.

There is a series of bonus payments that will also help families with children. These are the October bonus, the Christmas bonus, the working family payment bonus, the fuel allowance lump sum, the €100 qualified child bonus, and the two double child benefit bonuses before Christmas. I agree with the Deputy. He was a co-op manager and I was a credit union manager, and I can tell him that although there was talk of millionaires, I did not see too many. I saw many people who were damned glad of the payment. If they were means-tested, they would not get anything. The payment does make a difference.

The child benefit was a transformational payment that came in in the 1950s or earlier and it made a difference.