Vol. 452 No. 5
6 Mr. Flood asked the Minister for Social Welfare the steps, if any, he intends to take in order to regularise the payment of child dependant allowance to all relevant categories of social welfare recipients so that payment is made at the same rate in all cases. [8273/95]
In 1987, there were 36 different rates of child dependant allowances payable to social welfare recipients. Currently, only three different rates of allowance are payable. The cost of paying all child dependant allowances at the highest rate currently paid is estimated to be in the region of £62 million.
The Government is committed under the programme of renewal to work towards a basic income system for children by systematic improvements in child benefit, and the creation of a child benefit supplement. The proposed supplement will replace child dependant allowances currently payable to social welfare recipients. The implications of the new child benefit supplement are being examined in my Department at present. At the same time, the Expert Working Group on the Integration of the Tax and Social Welfare Systems has been asked to consider the proposal and to advise of the best overall strategy.
In these circumstances, changes in the existing structure of child dependant allowances would not be appropriate pending this advice.
Would the Minister not agree that paying child dependant allowances at £15.20 to retirement pensioners, £17 to survivors pensioners and £13.20 to old age pensioners is ludicrous and that the matter should be regularised and a unified payment made? Why differentiate between the categories?
I regret to have to say again that the Deputy has not listened to what I have told him. The Government is currently proposing that there be a child benefit supplement introduced, the intention being to subsume the current child dependant and family income supplement allowances into a child benefit supplement. The question of what to do with child dependant allowances is dependent on the advice we get from the Expert Group on the Integration of the Tax and Social Welfare Systems which has been asked to advice on the best way of introducing this supplement. I do not expect that the Deputy will advise us to bring all child dependant allowances to the lowest rate but would be looking for the highest rate, but to do that would cost £62 million extra. Given all the other things the Deputy wants me to do, I do not think he would be too happy if I were to bring the allowances down to the lowest level.
I am sure we need no expert to tell us how to get from A to B in regard to the figures. The Minister should be up front and not hide behind an expert group. Surely it would be reasonable to have child benefit the same for all categories. It costs everybody the same to clothe, feed and educate children. Why the differentiation? I am surprised to hear a Minister who always articulated the needs of the less well off suggesting the setting up of an expert group to examine such a simple thing as ensuring that all categories of child dependant should be equal. We are certainly not suggesting that the allowances be reduced but that they should be equal and as high as possible.
I am glad to hear that.
I cannot understand why the Minister needs to set up an expert group to examine something as simple as this.
I really think the Deputy should sit down for a session with his colleague, the former Minister for Social Welfare, and discuss with him the intricacies of these issues. Then he would not make statements like the one he has just made.
The Minister is in the Department now.
Let me explain the child allowance system to the Deputy, since he does not seem to understand it. There are three levels of child dependant allowance, which replace 36 different rates since 1987.
Thanks to Deputy Michael Woods.
As spokesperson for social welfare on the Opposition benches I welcomed the introduction of these changes by the then Minister. This Government is taking a new approach to the issue of supporting children in our society. We increased child benefit this year by £7 per child. Interestingly we have two rates of child benefit, one rate for the first two children and another rate for the third and subsequent children. I do not think the Deputy would argue that there should be only one rate of child benefit. Expert groups from different sources have recommended that there should be an advantage given to families with more children.
We are currently examining the introduction of a new idea, child benefit supplement, the idea being to bring the child dependant allowances which are payable to people on unemployment benefit, unemployment assistance and other assistance payments into line with payments made to people who are working and who get family income supplement, so that the children of people whether employed or unemployed who are below a certain income level are supported regardless of whether or not their parents are working, thus eliminating the poverty and unemployment trap associated with child dependant allowances. At the moment persons on unemployment assistance or benefit who are getting income for themselves and their spouse as an adult dependant and for one, two or three children lose the support they are receiving for their children if they get a job. We are saying that those earning up to a certain income level should retain this support for their children. That is a different concept from the one the Deputy is talking about, levelling child dependant allowances and leaving untouched the question of poverty and unemployment traps.
Deputy D. Wallace rose.
I want to make further progress. Members will agree that progress today has been sluggish. Let us try to expedite matters.
I am glad the Minister acknowledged that Deputy Woods removed 33 of the anomalies although he did not have an expert group to advise him.
Did he not?
People with expertise in the Department advised him during the years. We were closely associated with him. I still maintain that the Minister is hiding behind the advisory group? This is not necessary; where there is a will there is a way and if the Minister wanted to eliminate these anomalies quickly he could do so without the need to set up expert groups to advise him.
We are having repetition, a luxury we cannot afford.
More than anyone else he has articulated the needs of the less well off in the community. He now has an opportunity to meet them but is not doing so.
The Deputy has just scored an own goal. The expert groups to which I am referring in this question were established by the former Minister, Deputy Woods.
Not to eliminate three categories of child payments.
