Cutting child benefits - Unsustainable and unfair

It is unfortunate that the latest budget kite — cutting child benefits — should become public on a day the Government wrote a cheque for €1,000,000,000 to cover private bank debt.

Doubly so as yesterday Taoiseach Enda Kenny could do no more than insist that an EU agreement reached in June on bank debt would be honoured.

It has been obvious for years that many well-paid people who get child benefits should be outside of the remit of the welfare system yet nothing changes.

One option might be to declare that any family with an income over, say, €100,000 should not claim this allowance.

Police the system on a commission basis and fine those who break the rule multiples of what they have claimed. Equally, it is hard to believe that implementing a fairer system would be as hard as is suggested. Current arrangements are unsustainable and unfair.