Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal West, Sinn Fein)
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180. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if he is aware of the fact that when custody is split between two separated or divorced co-parents there is no mechanism by which both co-parents may each receive half of the children’s allowance; the children’s allowance instead, when there is a mother and father co-parenting, goes to the mother regardless of circumstances; if he is aware of the financial hardship this can incur on fathers who co-parent equally; if he has any plans to address this; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33103/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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Child Benefit is a monthly payment to families with children up to the age of 16 years. The payment continues to be paid in respect of children until their 19th birthday where they are in full-time education or have a disability. It is paid in respect of almost 1.3 million children. As a universal payment, Child Benefit assists parents with the cost associated with raising children and contributes towards alleviating child poverty.

Child Benefit is paid to the person with whom the qualifying children normally resides and the payment is based on the rules of residency which state that, where a qualified child resides with his or her mother, the child is deemed to be resident with the mother and with no other person. In effect, the mother is the qualified person to receive the benefit in respect of that child. This applies even where the child’s father also resides in same household. Where the child resides with both parents, the payment can be transferred to the child’s father on request from the qualified person.

In cases where the parents have an equal custody arrangement, individual payments follow the rules of the scheme concerned. In the case of Child Benefit, the payment is awarded to the mother in equal custody arrangements as the mother is deemed to be the qualified person to receive this payment under social welfare legislation.

Legislation does not provide for splitting the payment between both parents. To do so would reduce its effectiveness in terms of poverty reduction. There are no plans at present to change the payment arrangements for Child Benefit.