Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal West, Sinn Fein)

I think so. I respect the reply that the Minister has given and I do not disagree necessarily. However, there are instances increasingly where parents can demonstrate, either with a mandate from the court or, indeed, with an informal arrangement, that they split the custody, the care and, more importantly, the bills - as I said, children are not cheap - 50:50. There is an unfairness there. The reasons child benefit goes mostly to the mother are obvious. I absolutely respect those, but we need to start that conversation to encompass the fact that, increasingly, it is 50:50. The regulations state that the benefit goes to the place where the child resides mostly but when it is 50:50, the child is in both and it could equally be one or the other. We both know that children who grow up in lone-parent houses at more at risk of poverty. Therefore, there is scope for us to look at that. I will engage with the Chair of the social protection committee and I would be grateful if the Department would assist us in our work on that.

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