Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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724. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the full cost in 2018 of increasing child benefit in respect of children over 12 years of age by €30. [39793/17]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, 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 619,880 families in respect of some 1.2 million children, with an estimated expenditure of over €2 billion in 2017.

The estimated annual amount it would cost to increase Child Benefit by €30 for children over the age of 12 would be in the region of an additional €134 million.

The adoption of such a proposal would have significant cost implications and would have to be considered in an overall budgetary context.