Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In 2013, my Department will spend over €2.8 billion on supports to families and children, of which €1.9 billion will be on child benefit, €220 million on FIS, €694 million on qualified child increases and €49 million on the back to school clothing and footwear allowance. This amounts to a very significant part of the Department of Social Protection budget, around 14% of total.

We need to be sure that this major investment delivers good outcomes. In line with commitments contained in the programme for Government, I established the advisory group on tax and social welfare in 2011. The advisory group brought together people with experience and expertise on the issue of how best the State should support families with children, on social welfare payments and on low pay.

I was pleased to publish the first report of the advisory group examining child and family income supports on 20 February.

This report makes important high level recommendations on how child benefit could be maintained as a universal payment, and I welcome this recommendation.

The group concluded that there is no one perfect method of targeting child and family income supports. There was a strong preference in the group for an approach based on a two-tier child and family income support payment. The group considered that this approach would allow for a rationalisation of the overall child income support system. The two-tier child income support payment would encourage work participation and allow for better flexibility in the targeting of support for different family types.

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