Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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174. To ask the Minister for Social Protection her plans to means test children's allowance; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41196/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Child benefit is a universal payment made to families with children. It assists those families with the cost associated with raising children. It is paid to almost 1,200,000 children in over 600,000 families. The estimated expenditure in 2014 will be €1.9 billion.

Child benefit is of crucial importance to families, particularly middle-income families. For that reason, child benefit will be increased by €5 a month, or €60 per annum, from January 2015. This recognises the sacrifices that families made during the economic crisis and the fact that families are continuing to face difficulties. In the Statement of Prioritiespublished earlier this year, the Government promised a new deal on living standards for hard-pressed families, and this increase is in line with that commitment.

It is my intention to retain child benefit as a universal system to assist families with the cost of raising children. A crucial element of a strong and sustainable welfare system is the principle that everybody contributes, and that the system is there in turn to support those contributors at key stages in their lives. Child benefit is one of the few universal payments in the welfare system in that regard, and its universality has an important role to play in maintaining the sustainability of the system.

The Advisory Group on Tax and Social Welfare examined the structure of child and family income support in Ireland. As part of this examination the Group considered the means testing of child benefit but stated that such a system would have considerable administrative consequences, as the scale of means testing would be greater than anything required by the current system. Instead the Group recommended, among other things, that child benefit should continue to be paid on a universal basis.