Brendan Smith: Who Receives Child Benefit?

Thank you very much Cathaoirleach. Thank you Mr. Egan and his colleague Ms. Harrington for being here this evening. And obviously this is a very complex issue and firstly the Child Benefit is a very important payment for families and we know that from dealing with our representations how important it is for many families that those payments are made. Just as we discussed earlier with our witness, we all recognise that family structures have changed, family arrangements have changed considerably over the last number of decades. You mentioned here that you welcome the fact that this committee will engage with a number of stakeholder organisations on this particular issue. Has your department been engaging with stakeholders, with different advocacy groups? Is this an issue that arises at the fora that are held by the department in the context of forthcoming budgets? On an annual basis I understand those fora are held. Has that issue been raised by different representative organisations or advocacy groups? You also mentioned that it's important, and I quote, it's important to note that fathers may have entitlement to Child Benefit in cases where the qualified child spends the majority of the time with them. The payment is currently made to almost 11,000 men. Is there a particular delineation or threshold where that decision can be made? Or by and large would that be agreement reached between both parents on who would receive the payment? I fully understand this is a very difficult area, particularly when this payment is so important to the families and for the children in particular. Thank you. Thank you Deputy. So you're absolutely right and well informed Deputy. My department, the Department of Social Protection, has a huge and proud tradition of engaging with a wide range of stakeholders. And indeed tomorrow my colleagues and I and many of the ministers specifically will be hosting the pre-budget forum where we will be meeting with the community and voluntary groups, discussing their budget priorities. We also have a social inclusion forum and we have a regular quarterly engagement with the CMV pillar as well. I have to be honest Deputy, in terms of the engagements we've had, this issue in terms of those particular groups has not risen, or at least not in many great numbers over many, many years. That's not to say within the margins it mightn't have been raised. We have, particularly working, we have a lot of work with the National Women's Council, with SPARC, One Family, TROR. So we're very familiar with family break-up situations unfortunately in terms of the policy impacts. But this issue hasn't arisen, it hasn't formed the basis of a formal... It hasn't? Not formally in terms of a budget... You said it has or hasn't. Oh sorry, apologies Deputy, it hasn't. In terms of formal budget submission. That said, there are difficult cases and representations can be made by those organisations on an individual basis about a particular circumstance. So they would have happened, but not in terms of your question, in terms of a budget change or a legislative change. That hasn't happened. In terms of the issue, in terms of the fathers of the 10,700 fathers, that covers a range of scenarios. They're not all fathers in these circumstances. All of those fathers would have primary... The child would be primarily resident with the father, whether the father unfortunately may be a widow or that could be a case. They might necessarily reflect a relationship breakdown. In the unfortunate circumstances where a relationship does break down, it is very difficult to see the rationale or to assess the case. And what normally happens is we, as a department, would seek evidence from both parents to see where the child is predominantly residing. And it's up to both parents. If they have a claim, if they're both seeking claimants for child benefit, because we can only claim to one parent, we would then obviously ask for whatever evidence they can produce. We then might ask a social welfare inspector to go and assess both households and make a judgment call in relation to where we believe the child is primarily residing. But it depends largely very much on a case-by-case basis. I thank you for your response. I just had a case recently myself where the child was spending more time with the mother now than the child had been and the father was in receipt of the child benefit. When I contacted the department, they were extremely helpful in changing the payment, I have to say that. And they didn't put us around the world. It was done very expeditiously and in a very helpful manner by your colleagues in the child benefit section. I just want to record that.