Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I take on board what Deputy McAuliffe is saying. Keeping a child in full-time education is a very expensive task. I fully understand it and I do know about it. Child benefit is one of the only tools at my disposal in the Department of Social Protection to support working families. We had the double child benefit payment in December and we will have the €100 lump sum payment on the child benefit payment at the start of June. I will be in the Seanad tomorrow for the next Stage of the legislation for that in order to pay that €100. A few people have raised this issue with me, and the request I have got most frequently is to continue paying child benefit when the child is 18 and they are still in secondary school. They will be 18 in March and nothing will have changed in April and they are still in secondary school. However, going out as far as aged 22 would be a big jump. I am not sure that we could call it "child benefit" if we are paying it in respect of a 22-year-old. To be fair, they are adults at that stage and most of them are probably working part-time. There are other supports, such as the SUSI grant, which is available for when they are at college. I would like to try to do something for those families where the child is still at secondary school.

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