Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

Just because a person is incarcerated, he or she is not deemed to have abandoned his or her child. That is fair enough.

On child benefit, figures from the central database of the Department of Education and Science show that 72% of young people who completed the leaving certificate last year were under the age of 18. Whereas the majority of schools offer a transition year, the majority of students do not take up this offer. A number of schools only offer transition year to a limited number of students in the relevant cohort. Considerations relating to child benefit should not in any way act as a deterrent in the context of people continuing with their education up to leaving certificate level. We introduced compensatory payments for next year and the year after as a result of the suddenness of the change, which takes effect from 1 January. We do not want to cause people any further undue distress by removing the payment without giving adequate notice.

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