Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The early child care supplement was introduced to support people paying for child care but at the same time the Government had to recognise those people who were looking after their children in their own home, which is the reason the payment was made available to everybody and not, as stated in the Fine Gael proposal, for child care expenses. That would only be for people most likely working outside the home. Because it is a family payment under EU rules, it must be paid to people whose children are living abroad.

We can sometimes lose perspective on this issue. It is only 1% of the total budget that is paid to children living abroad. Those rules worked in our favour a number of years ago when Irish men worked in the United Kingdom. Their families were living here but child benefit in the UK was much better than it was here and Irish families benefited. Now the shoe is on the other foot and the money is going the other way. That is an aside.

In the context of having to make savings in all Departments, the Office of the Minister for Children determined this was an area where one could make savings but still meet the criteria originally behind it, because it was designed to support people in those years before a child was in full-time school. The age of six was chosen because that is the compulsory school age but the vast majority of children are in school by the time they are five and a half. Throughout the country most children are in school by the time they are four or four and a half, so it is still meeting that need for those children. The amount is €1,100 per year. Families will continue to get €6,000 for that period up to the time when a child reaches the age of five and a half.

The other change that was introduced related to not paying the money on a quarterly basis. We discussed the matter last night. That is utterly reasonable. One gets the payment from the time the child is born until he or she is five and a half and not for the couple of months before and after. I accept that should not have been put into the scheme in the first place, but it was done in an effort to recognise the pressures on families and to be as generous as possible in that regard. It was an additional family payment to support all parents in trying to rear their children, especially in those expensive years when child care is involved. At least by making the savings in the way we have done, by cutting the age back to five and a half, we recognise that children are in primary school full time by the age of five and a half.

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