Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

At present just over 5,300 mothers reside in another EU member state whose partner or husband is either employed in Ireland or is in receipt of a contributory social welfare payment in Ireland. We should put this in context. Total expenditure on child benefit in 2008 and 2009 was in the region of €2.5 billion. If one takes €2,500 and then one puts €1 million after it, we are speaking about €20 of the €2,500. I am not denying it is €20 but it is not a huge amount of money and it is because there is an obligation under the European Union. What we have been doing, which is worth much more money than trying to avoid a European Union obligation, is writing to recipients of child benefit to check whether they still reside at the address we have. The number of returns we get where the person is not known at the address are significant. For every 9,000 letters we send, we get responses that 100 people are not known at the address, which is significant when the total numbers are all stacked up. This includes writing to Irish people.

In 1,500 responses to every 9,000 letters people do not return it in the envelope. In some cases, as soon as the payment is missed, the envelope comes flying back to us. It is unfortunate that people do not return it but it has been important for us to run the rule across the board, not only across those who came to live in Ireland but also those who permanently live in Ireland, to ensure they are living here and entitled to child benefit. Savings are being made there and they will be far greater and fraud elimination will be far greater through changing this rule whereby one can work here legitimately and have the payment paid to a spouse in another country. It is less than 1% of the payment.

The scheme does not provide for the splitting of payments between parties irrespective of the formal custody arrangement. Where the child is mainly resident with the mother, the child benefit is paid to the mother. If the child is resident with the father for more than half the time, the benefit is paid to the father. There is no provision for circumstances where the child is resident with each parent for exactly half the time and there would be severe difficulties in trying to determine this administratively in the event of a dispute. As child benefit is paid on a residence basis, a change to a formal custody or guardianship arrangement would change fundamentally the base on which child benefit is paid for all recipients of child benefit and not only in those circumstances where parents have separated. I understand the Law Reform Commission is examining the legal aspects of family relationships further and will issue a report later this year. It will examine all these matters and I will re-examine the issue of appropriate payment arrangements for child benefit in light of this report to ensure it reflects the most up-to-date thinking in the area.

We must be careful that any change we make does not discommode the many for the few. It is one of the problems. I am always very sorry for the odd cases but we also have to be careful not to discommode the many for the few. If one can come up with a solution that gives to the few without discommoding the many, I will be fine with it, but if it creates a hugely complicated situation instead of the situation we have, which is relatively straightforward and satisfies 99%, I would say not to change it unless we are absolutely sure that will not be disturbed and that we are going to a better place for the remainder.