€154 Child Benefit increase cost as Minister confirms ‘no plans' to extend cash for 16k kids amid ‘targeted' boost plot
Instead, the Government are focused on "targeted" payments for those most at risk of poverty.
2
Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary ruled out extending the Child Benefit payment to some groups
Credit:2
Increasing Child Benefit by 10 per cent would bring the payment to €154 each month
Credit: Getty Images - Getty
Weekly Child Benefit payments to 16,000 children
The Minister for Social Protection said: "There are currently no plans to extend
"It is important that the Child Benefit payment reflects our policy objective of encouraging young people to
Calleary was addressing People Before Profit leader
READ MORE IN MONEY
Child Benefit is currently paid at a rate of €140 per child monthly to over 650,000 families in respect of over 1.2 million children.
Payments are
The monthly payment for a first child was €131.60 in 2004 and stands at €140 now, just six per cent higher.
MOST READ ON THE IRISH SUN
The Child Benefit rate reached €166 during the
Major warning over emergency social welfare scam texts as thousands could be targeted
And
He explained: "Child Benefit is currently in payment in respect of approximately 1.2 million children with an estimated expenditure of €2.2 billion for 2025.
"The cost of increasing Child Benefit by 10 per cent would result in additional annual expenditure on the scheme of approximately €218 million based on the estimated number of recipients in 2025."
Calleary said approximately the Child Benefit payments of approximately 16,000 children aged 16 to 18 has their payments stopped this year as there was no evidence they were in education.
He added: "Extending Child Benefit to these individuals, assuming that they were all single births, would therefore cost approximately €27 million annually."
To get Child Benefit, parents must be living in Ireland and meet the
Habitual Residence Condition.
Applicants for International Protection do not satisfy this condition and are there not eligible for Child Benefit.
Calleary said that paying Child Benefit to Internal Protection Applicants residing in accommodation provided by IPAS would cost the State around €11.5m each year.
The total combined cost for the measures requested could therefore be estimated at around €256.5 million each year.
€285 CHILD BENEFIT BOOST
Research by the State's economic think tank looked at the effect of
And
confirmed that the Government is considering a second-tier
targeted at poorer families in a bid to combat child poverty.
He said: "I have a unit within the Department that is focusing on this issue and I've already spoken to Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary on this.
"Nothing is off the table. There is a wide menu of options to choose from to target resources to meaningfully impact on the child poverty situation."
The €140 flat payment would still be paid to everyone, regardless of income.
But a "second-tier" allowance worth an average of €285 per month would allow lower-income families to top up the existing €140-a-month benefit.
NO €2.2B COST OF LIVING PACKAGE
The second-tier allowance talks come as Finance Minister
The
The Government has instead this year leaned more towards the possible
for those most at risk of poverty.
The Budget 2025 package - the
It included two double
Budget 2025 also provided an additional October cost-of-living double payment as well as the usual social welfare Christmas bonus.
But Donohoe and Public Expenditure Minister
DOLE FREEZE
Yesterday, Tanaiste Simon Harris claimed that people on the dole should
In their general election manifesto,
With businesses struggling to find workers to fill vacant positions, Tanaiste Simon Harris indicated that the Government may freeze the
Asked if the Government will separate the jobseekers allowance from other welfare hikes, the Tanaiste told the Irish Sun: "Budgets are all about choices.
"They are all about balance and there is only so much money in the pot so I will keep an open mind on that.
'I'm not convinced that you need to see as significant a rise in the dole as you do in the pension for example at a time when our country is in full employment and there's lots of supports out there for people getting into work and there is other supports out there for people who can't work for very many good reasons."
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