Child benefit will be maintained, promises Burton

Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton, says child benefit will be maintained.

Ms Burton described child benefit as a significant cash payment to families, many of whom were in an age group that was troubled by mortgage debt.

“The cash flow [from child benefit] is very important in the budget of those families, particularly where they have two or more children,” Ms Burton told an Oireachtas committee.

“I propose to continue our child benefit structure,” she told yesterday’s meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection.

The minister also referred to the Working Family Dividend aimed at improving incomes for families moving from welfare to work.

Ms Burton said it was an additional incentive for families who were long-term unemployed to move into employment, including self-employment.

The scheme, expected to be introduced in next month’s budget, allows individuals to retain a portion of their previous social welfare payment relating to their children for a period of time after they leave the welfare system.

Ms Burton said she hoped the scheme would prove attractive to around 80,000 people on the live register — mostly men who lost their jobs during the construction industry collapse as many were in family relationships with children.

“I would hope that it would be of significant assistance to that group of people as the construction industry, as we can see, is slowly but surely increasing its activity levels.”

Ms Burton told the committee that €70.7m in social welfare overpayments was recovered last year. “The informal figures I have seen for this year are a little above that,” she added.

She described the debt recoveries as very significant — they had almost doubled following the introduction of new measures in 2012.

Ms Burton also referred to the secondment of 20 gardaí to the department’s special investigations unit and expects to have them in place in the next month or two.

She said gardaí had expressed huge interest in working with the department.

Earlier, Ms Burton criticised burial costs, particularly in the Dublin area.

“The charges, even for putting in a small urn relating to the ashes of a beloved one, are extraordinarily high,” she said.

She said community welfare officers were being regularly asked to help families cover burial costs.