We need to spend more money giving all children a better start

Scrap the child benefit system entirely and start afresh, finding better ways to spend the money, writes Fergus Finlay

DEAR Tánaiste, I’m taking the liberty of writing to you because I want you to change your mind about something. I know it’s a promise you’ve already made, and you may feel that it might represent something of a loss of face if you were to abandon it now. But it’s not a huge change I’m asking you to make, and it could perhaps do a lot of good.

It was your colleague, Brendan Howlin, who announced in last year’s Budget that the Government had decided to increase child benefit by €5 per child, and that the Government hoped to repeat that again this year. Since then, I gather that the increase has been more or less agreed — it’s one of the “givens” we can expect from the Budget in a few weeks’ time. It will be an increase this year of €60 per annum per child.