Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am not speaking about taking away the payment; I am speaking about using the threat as the mechanism to ensure children attend school. Surely fining parents €500 would not solve the problem if the parents were to end up in prison because they could not pay the fine. This is not a solution to the problem either. Is the Minister aware that a condition of the child benefit rules is that the child must attend school. Rather than the Department of Social Protection sending out 600,000 letters a year to check whether children are attending school, which would be enough paper to wallpaper Croke Park two and half times, would it not make far more sense to link the agencies to ensure more effective monitoring of school attendance? As a knock-on consequence ,it would save €100 million by dealing with fraudulent claims, which is quite separate from the issue of school attendance.

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