Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)
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Question 94: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the changes he will make to child income supports in view of the National Economic and Social Council report, Child Income Supports: The Case for a New Form of Targeting. [12208/08]

Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Question 102: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if his Department is studying the recently published National Economic and Social Council research paper Ireland's Child Income Supports: The Case for a New Form of Targeting; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12123/08]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 94 and 102 together.

The principal child-centred income support is child benefit, payable in respect of children up to the age of 16 years and to age 19 in the case of children who are in full time education or suffering from a long-term disability. Payment is not affected by parental means or employment status.

The Department's other main child income supports are the qualified child increase, paid in addition to social welfare payments and family income supplement, paid to low-income employees working a specified minimum number of hours per fortnight and who have at least one qualified child.

The number of FIS recipients has substantially increased in recent years, from just over 12,000 at the end of December 2002 to the current figure of almost 23,000. My Department is currently undertaking a project to determine if, despite this increase in take up, there are significant numbers of qualifying families who have not yet availed of this payment. This project is expected to report later in 2008.

In addition, the early childcare supplement, paid by my department on behalf of the Office of the Minister for Children in respect of all children under 6 years of age who receive CB, also makes a significant contribution to recipient families.

For a number of years, government policy has been to invest additional resources in child benefit. This policy focus was driven, in part, by the recognition that the loss of qualified child increases by social welfare recipients on taking up employment could act as a disincentive to availing of work opportunities. In terms of tackling work disincentives, the shift towards child benefit has been significant. For example, in 1994 child benefit represented 29% of the total child income support payment for a four child family and is now 64%. In other words, a family will now only lose 36% of their child income support when a welfare recipient loses entitlement to a primary social welfare payment.

Under the terms of an earlier Social Partnership agreement the National Economic and Social Council was asked to examine the feasibility of merging the family income supplement with qualified child increase with a view to creating a single second tier child income support. This commitment to examining such a change was subsequently embodied in the current social partnership agreement 'Towards 2016'. NESC commissioned John Sweeney to bring forward proposals for child income support and his research paper was received towards the end of 2007. NESC did not reach agreement on the proposals.

The broad objectives of child income support are to bring about an improvement in the relative overall position of families with children compared with single persons or childless couples and to alleviate child poverty. In considering future policy, it is important to keep in mind the multiple objectives behind the provision of such support and to maintain the correct balance between child benefit and more selective measures. Dr Sweeney's research paper will make an important contribution to this process.