Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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260. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the estimated cost of indexing the child support payment to 45% of the qualified adult payment for children under 12 and 55% for children over 12 years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25057/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The estimated single full-year annual cost of indexing the child support payment to 45% of the qualified adult payment for children under 12 years and to 55% for children aged 12 years and over is €371.5 million.

This would represent an increase from the current rates to a new weekly rate of €72.90 for children under 12, and a new weekly rate of €89.10 for children aged 12 and over.

For the purposes of this estimate, the costing is based on the Child Support Payment being indexed to a single rate - the current maximum qualified adult rate for Jobseeker's payments, currently at €162 - a rate which is prevalent across most working age payments for the range of schemes which currently host the most Child Support Payments.

It should be noted that these costings are subject to change in the context of emerging trends and associated revision of the estimated numbers of recipients for 2025.