Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The savings from this next year will be €97 million, which is a significant amount of money. Given the way the scheme was devised in the first instance, the parents of a child born in March received the payment for the full quarter of January, February and March, which meant they received a payment for a child not yet born. If a child was six in January the parent received the payment for January, February and March. It has been changed to a monthly payment from the time the child is born until he or she reaches the age of five and a half. It was always designed to support children in full-time child care and the costs paid by parents for that rather than after school care.