Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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136. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection to clarify whether his Department intends to introduce a targeted, second tier payment of child benefit in Budget 2026; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [50030/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The Programme for Government includes the commitment to explore a targeted child benefit payment and examine the interaction this would have with existing targeted supports like the Working Family and Child Support Payments. Officials in my Department are working on this commitment.

The ESRI has proposed a model for a Second-Tier Child Benefit which would abolish the existing Child Support Payment and remove core conditions for the Working Family Payment, involving a cost of €770m a year. It is important to note that the second-tier payment, as proposed by the ESRI, involves an entire re-engineering of current working age supports.

The ESRI analysis states that under its proposal, up to 100,000 children could see losses in household income, while 233,000 would experience gains. Further work is required to definitively quantify the number of people affected either way.

The impacts of any new second tier payment on work incentives, the labour market and existing Child Support Payment recipients needs to be carefully analysed. This work is complex and will take time to complete.

For Budget 2026, the Government has emphasised the importance of directing support to families with children where it is most needed. The Government is committed to reducing child poverty and is looking at all options in this regard. There are a wide range of possible approaches, and we want to ensure these are given full consideration in the context of the budget.