Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

To ask the Minister for Social Protection if consideration will be given to the costs of private child care when means testing children's benefit on income; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [38976/12]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Child benefit is a universal payment that assists parents with the cost of raising children and it contributes towards alleviating child poverty. The estimated expenditure on child benefit for 2012 is around €2 billion in respect of some 1.15 million children. The Government is conscious that child benefit, as a universal payment, can be an important source of income for all families, especially during a time of recession and high unemployment. The social protection system also provides assistance to low income families with children through the payment of qualified child increases on primary social welfare payments and through the family income supplement payment. Both of these provide a level of assistance which is directly or indirectly linked with a household’s income situation.

I have no plans to implement means-testing of child benefit at this time. However, if the Government decided in principle to progress on these lines, there are many issues that would have to be addressed. These would include not only issues about what factors to take into account but also broader policy, legislative and administrative issues. These would include ensuring that systems are in place to ensure that households only claimed benefits to which they were entitled, as the scale of means testing approximately 600,000 families would be significantly greater than anything required by the current social protection system in terms of means tested payment.

Nonetheless, I am conscious that achieving a better design of the overall system of child income supports, including child benefit, raises complex issues about the effectiveness and efficiency of the full range of income supports currently provided to families and their children. In this context and in line with a commitment in the Programme for Government, I established an Advisory Group on Tax and Social Welfare last year, which has been tasked with recommending cost-effective solutions as to how employment disincentives can be improved and better poverty outcomes achieved, particularly child poverty outcomes. The Advisory Group prioritised the area of family and child income supports and has completed its work on this area. Their report is currently receiving my consideration and will assist the Government in setting out a pathway towards a more appropriate system of child income supports.