Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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743. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection her plans to extend the payment of child benefit to include those children that have reached 18 years of age but are still in full-time secondary school education; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [22221/20]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, 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, until their 18th birthday, who are in full-time education, or who have a disability. Child benefit is currently paid, as of end-July 2020, to over 637,793 families in respect of over 1.2 million children. The estimated expenditure on Child Benefit in 2019 is in excess of €2 billion.

Analysis of data from the Department of Education and Skills, and Child Benefit data, indicate that there were up to 25,901 students aged 17 or 18 year in full-time secondary education during the 2019/2020 academic year. The estimated annual cost of extending eligibility for Child Benefit to include 18 year-olds in full-time secondary education is in the region of €56.1 million.

Any change to Child Benefit involves significant cost implications, and would have to be considered in an overall budgetary context.