Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Child benefit is a universal payment to help families with the cost of raising children and plays an important role in tackling child poverty. It does not rely on a means test or social insurance contributions and is paid to the parents of qualified children up to the age of 18 years. It is paid to approximately 623,000 families for 1.2 million children with estimated spending of more than €2 billion by my Department this year. Child benefit is not linked to school attendance for children under 16 and the Social Welfare Acts do not require monitoring of school attendance for children aged under 16. There is no power in the Act to do so. For older children aged 16 and 17 years, an annual declaration is required from parents, signed by their school, that their children attend school or that they have a disability.

The monitoring of children's attendance at school is an important child welfare issue but is beyond my remit as Minister for Social Protection. The attendance of children at school is monitored by Tusla under the Education (Welfare) Acts on a statutory basis on behalf of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs. Any issues concerning school attendance, including the operation of the monitoring systems, are a matter for Tusla and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs.

My Department operates control programmes on all departmental schemes, designed to ensure that payments cease where there is no longer an entitlement. Child benefit operates a very effective and efficient control programme, ensuring that payment is only paid to families who continue to have such an entitlement.

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