Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

Some people in here would know more about fraud than others.

Despite the fact that I was not around in the 1920s and did not have a great deal of interest in pensions when I was a child, I used to hear my mother talking continuously about Ernest Blythe taking the shilling from old age pensioners. I am reliably told it was in the 1920s. If this Government cuts child benefit, as it intends, it will be remembered in the same vein. It is outrageous that the only support mechanism for children in homes should now be targeted by the Government, which gave tax reliefs to developers and landlords like snuff at a wake. The only people it can now think of targeting are the low paid and those with children to support.

The esteem in which the payment is held is demonstrated by the groups that support its retention. These include the National Women's Council of Ireland, the Children's Rights Alliance, One Family, OPEN and Protest Against Child Unfriendly Budget, PACUB, which is an on-line support system that has attracted 16,000 members in a very short period. That says it all. The Government does not want to hear what the cut to the benefit means to families, including children.

This is probably the only country in Europe that does not recognise children in any way other than through a child benefit. It does not recognise them in the tax code or in terms of work or child care, despite what Government backbenchers are saying. The Government has actually saved money through the introduction of the free year of preschool education because parents do not get a child care supplement for their qualifying child up to the age of six.

The Government may rattle off all the figures it likes but should note the payment is only €38 per week per child. Any mother or father who provides for children every week knows it would not buy a pair of shoes. We all know this and that is why what I say is important. The benefit is part and parcel of what we do to provide for children.

When individualisation was introduced by Mr. Charlie McCreevy with razzmatazz we had never seen before and to his mantra "party on", it forced women into the workforce. There was no further recognition for women in the home. The only recognition of their contribution in the home was child benefit, over which they had control and which they spent on their children.

Earlier in the debate, Deputy Mary O'Rourke hailed Fianna Fáil for introducing a mechanism in 1974 whereby child benefit was paid to the mother. Fianna Fáil did not introduce that policy. It was introduced by Frank Cluskey and Brendan Corish. At that time, those two men realised child benefit in the hands of men was not always handed over to women and the children suffered. Once again, the Government is discussing cutting the payment.

There are many people in the country who could do with a cut in terms of income or additional taxation, but children should not be affected. I find it amazing that when we discuss pensions in this country, we always refer to the fact our population is falling and we need to increase it because in the future we will need people to work in order to ensure pensions are paid. It is the current income of future workers which will be cut.

Children have no protection under the Constitution or the law. At a time when the Ryan and Murphy reports which referred specifically to crimes against children are in the public domain, the Government is talking about cutting the essential funding now going into homes. The proposal will not be the first cut to child benefit. In the last budget the Government cut child benefit payments to the mothers of 18 year olds, who are still in school and whose parents have to support them on a low income. It is outrageous.

Of all the things this Government can cut, child benefit is not one of them. I wonder if the Government is building up a straw man in order to knock it down. If the Government hears groups of the calibre of the National Women's Council of Ireland, One Family and other such groups telling it this proposal is not correct and that supporting families and children is the only way we will come through this crisis, that is something of which it must take notice.

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