Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The main areas where reductions are being made are as follows. Child benefit is being cut by €16 per child per month for all children and full compensation is being provided to families who are dependent on welfare payments or receiving the family income supplement. It is important that the most vulnerable families are being protected from the cut in child benefit. The weekly rates of payment to those aged under 66 years are being reduced by about 4.1% or an average of €8.30 per week. Reduced rates of payments will apply to new jobseeker's allowance claimants aged 24 years and under who are not in training or education. Reduced rates will also apply to jobseekers of any age who unreasonably refuse offers of training or education. The treatment benefit scheme is also being limited in 2010 to free dental and optical examinations and the medical and surgical appliances scheme only.

Additional fraud and control savings of €33.3 million to give total savings of €533 million are being targeted for 2010, through enhanced targeting of particular schemes and the introduction of new anti-fraud powers provided for in the Bill. In addition, savings of €20 million are expected to result from reductions in the maximum rent levels for new or renewed rent supplement tenancies, while savings of €2 million are being made through restructuring of the regional support agencies that work with the family resource centres.

I propose to outline the details of these measures, starting with the changes being made to child benefit. As Deputies will be aware, between 2000 and 2009 the monthly rates of payment for child benefit increased from just €53.96 for the first child and €71.11 for the third and subsequent children to €166 and €203, respectively.

In the same period, overall expenditure on child benefit grew from €638 million to approximately €2,500 million each year. As a result, approximately 12% of gross social welfare spending in 2009 will be on child benefit. Currently more than 600,000 households receive child benefit in respect of 1.1 million children. A family with four children currently receives €738 per month, or €8,856 per year in child benefit, regardless of the parents' earnings from employment.

The Government is proud to have been able to deliver such significant increases in payments to families when the resources were available. However, in the current economic environment we simply cannot afford to keep spending at the same level as when our tax revenue was a good deal higher. In this context, we decided to reduce overall expenditure on child benefit.

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