John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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150. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the changes he is considering in relation to making child benefit payments to fathers or guardians of children and the expected time frame for any such changes. [17413/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Child Benefit is a monthly payment made to families with children in respect of all qualified children up to the age of 16 years. The payment continues to be paid in respect of children up to their 18th birthday who are in full-time education, or who have a disability. Child Benefit is currently paid to around 624,000 families in respect of some 1.2 million children, with an estimated expenditure in the order of over €2 billion in 2016.

The current arrangements for paying Child Benefit are defined under the provisions of the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act 2005 with the detailed rules set out in article 159 of the Social Welfare (Consolidated Claims, Payments and Control) Regulations, 2007.

The day-to-day needs of the children are the priority consideration in the operation of the current child benefit payment arrangements. Child Benefit is payable to the person with whom a qualified child normally resides. The regulations governing normal residence for Child Benefit purposes, provides that a child who is resident with both parents shall be regarded as being normally resident with the mother. Where the child is living full-time with the father only, then Child Benefit will be payable to the father.

The scheme does not specifically provide for the payment to the father where the child is also resident with the mother although there are a small number of child benefit claims in payment to the father in situations where the parents live together.

Legislation was first introduced in 1974 to provide for payment to the mother. This was seen as a progressive step, the principle of payment to the mother being subordinate to the primary objective that payments had to be for the benefit of the child. Provision is in place to transfer payment to another individual in certain circumstances.

The Department regularly reviews all of its schemes, including Child Benefit, in order to ensure that they are still delivering on their original policy aims and objectives and it is my intention to examine this issue.