True – if they are not living here, they should be claiming off the state they are resident actually in.

Totally totally agree, it’s a joke! Children should be living in the state in order to be entitled. Likewise the way everybody, no matter what their income, is automatically entitled to child benefit. I got it and while I’m not rich, I could have easily done without it, whereas some others not so fortunate depend on it!!! It needs a major overhaul and I don’t think this is the way to go about it.

I don’t see why taxpayers should subsidise people who want to have kids anyway (and yes, I do have kids). The government shouldn’t interfere in the choices people make, unless those choices are illegal. The less government interference we have, the lower our taxes will be and the more people will want to “generate” rather than just put a hand out.

Because today’s children are tomorrow’s tax payer’s. Remember that when you are in your dotage and enjoying your free travel pass and healthcare. Look up what support children get in Finland for example. That’s a progressive society!

Totally agree, day after day I see employees having forms filled in for kids that don’t live in Ireland, they claim! My Kids are sick and I pay 60 per child at the doctors, and they are entitled to medical cards too.

so if you’ve worked hard all your life payed taxes and through no fault of your own are forced to lets say move to london to work on a construction site ,leaving your wife and x amount of kids behind,those kids born and raised in ireland should not recieve child benefit in this economic climate?

@ Raymond: I think you’ve misread the argument Johnny made. If the kids aren’t living in Ireland then they shouldn’t be receiving child benefit in Ireland, from the Irish government.

Stephen, surely you have no idea what you are talking about. “Eastern European economies are thriving” because of the Irish child benefits – LOL – sure. Yeah, child dole from Ireland makes everyone over there minted and swimming in luxuries yeah right…. Children clothes in Poland are more expensive than in Ireland, food just about the same (maybe bit cheaper, not much), toys – more expensive than in Ireland, etc. etc. Yeah, 140 a month is real fortune all right :) Also where there is worker working in Ireland he is entitled to get whatever they give, regardless where the children are and accept the fact, this is EU rule and not just in Ireland, but concerning every other country. So if your kids are spending some school time or perhaps visiting family abroad, maybe you should report yourself to the authorities you want to have child benefit stopped for that time, as they’re not here, good idea Stephen? Also another fact you missed is how many immigrant children are actually living outside the state, I don’t think it’s that many in fact, most would be here with their parents anyways. It’s typical story to turn around taxpayers attention and direct their anger at in fact almost meaningless subject. SW should rather check all the people living HERE who scam the system, this is where real loss is…

For goodness sake, how does a democratic system works? It takes YEARS to reform. Legislation changes are much more complex to implement than a simple budget cut. We are broke NOW.

FF kept shoving child benefit up up up up up. Was it only me at the time thinking ‘that will bite us in the ass’ in a few years? Are people now all for the daft FF policies that bankrupted us?

Child benefit is considered when working out social welfare benefits. This possible cut will affect those that can’t afford it. Simple. For me anyway.

If they do go ahead with this, social welfare payments should increase by same per dependent child. Wouldn’t take YEARS. P Wurple.

@mark unfortunately you are not the only family faced with this dilemma. It is sickening to think that your whole life is being governed by idiots in the Dail and Reichstag. I empathise with your situation completely.

How did they do it years ago Mark when everyone had large families.A lot more poverty and shortage of food then but providence always provides.The world will not end if you decide to have another child far from it.The benefit system down south is the best in Europe and yet some are never happy,some in the world are dying because they have no clean water,count your blessings folks its not all bad.

Your hatred for the Irish people is noted.

Yes, but it is easier than that – just tax the child benefit and as when someone starts a new job the benefit should be taxed with emergency tax until some of that individual’s credits are transferred to offset the tax on the child benefit. Then people who earn 50,000 a year would get much less child benefit but still get some and the whole system would merge with the taxation system and therefore would not require an expensive and new means-testing system for every family in Ireland.

But they would argue that they were ‘down here on the shop floor’ before going in to the Dail and you would say they are no different. I would say that this country is heading in the same direction as Italy and Greece unless we do either of two things – 1. Get our finances in order and not be dictated to by the IMF et al or 2. Burn the bondholders and start printing our own money and get as far away from Merkel and Sarkozy as possible before we are under the control is a dictatorship. If that happens, we will see cuts to child allowance etc in a different light.

Dee living in Derry i know lots of people from across the border who tell me they dont have to work as the benefits are so good down south.Wake up its going to ruin the republic paying for this lunacy.Look at child benefit almost double what we get and yet all you do is whinge.As for high prices the republic is happy to flog off tourists with over inflated prices like food and drink.Dont make me laugh.

How about reducing and reforming welfare payments? Do u want to add that?

Its all that terrible FG who are doing the cutting. They really are terrible aren’t they?

Oh wait… What’s that – Joan Burton of LABOUR is in Social Protection?

@ Ryan. We have noticed how generous FG were to give 2 out of 3 of the big spending Depts to Labour. How convenient. Their intention to obliterate the Labour vote in the next election is cynical.

Firstly we don’t have the wealthy to tax…..and the very few will leave if we do, and spend their money else where

If you reduce the top rate of pay in the civil service to €100k will the rest have to take a proportional cut to keep the motivational factor to work harder to get promoted

Why not reduce the the minimum wage, currently it higher that other EU counties and is a barrier to people seeking work and creates a black labour Market

The only sensible thing you wrote was reducing Corporation Tax

Our solution is very simple, don’t pay the risk taking bankers, that would solve most of our issues

@Pa Foley I do have a plan for reforming welfare payments. I think most of the money should be on a voucher system for people who have been on welfare for 2 or more years. The vouchers should cover the basics like home, food and heating with a maximum of €50 cash. But suggesting this before a fair system is put in place is dangerous as Fine Gael will implement this without the other more important reforms. Fine Gael pick on the young they should pick on the institutional elite and the job for the boys culture which they are currently embracing.

@Johnny Zillion Tax the wealthy, it is listening to this crap that they will leave the country if asked to pay their fair share let them leave! Why not cut the minimum wage? BECAUSE WE PAY MORE FOR EVERYTHING IN IRELAND THAN THE REST OF THE EU! Bring prices in line with EU prices then I have no problem with cutting the rate, but when we are being RIPPED OFF I have a big problem. We spend most of the time looking at cutting costs not at GETTING VALUE. If we looked at getting value then there would be no need to cut child benefit.

We saw where Labour and Fine Gael got a few of their chums onto the benches of the Courts lately. My ears are ringing with the shouting about Judicial independence since the referendum.

The cronyism continues!http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/1114/1224307527505.html

Pay back your debts John and get on with it,Stop blaming the Catholic church for all your woes.No one was complaining when Europe poured billions of euros to help Ireland in the eighties and nineties,now its payback time.Yes Kenny and RTE have nothing to worry about with their huge wages but then again its coming out of your pocket……..sucker.

Get real, we are broke and cutbacks need to be made…if we had a Government with Sinn Fein, The Socialist Party and People before Profit, the cut backs would be exactly the same and we would all whinge about broken promises and these parties demise, wishing them to be
replaced by the latest noisy radical grouping, who when they get power will do exactly the same…..we have no choices

I am real. If the word of our top man cannot be trusted by his own people, his fellow government ministers, never mind the public – how can we expect foreign government ministers never mind business people looking to invest/set-up elsewhere, to take our government serious?

You do realise that this is only ONE of many u-turns by this government don’t you?

…And what does it say to the credability of the word of FG, never mind Labour who are just FG’s lapdogs – as the Greens were to Fianna Fail and look how that ended up!

Just read the bit at the end where you talk about waffle. Seems to sum up your rant pretty well….

You have to remember what age Gilmore is. He’s waited around for decades to be in government, and now that he’s in, I seriously doubt that he’ll come out. The same goes for the rest of his cabinet… Look at the age profile of most of them. The political reality is that Gilmore, Rabbitte, Howlin and Burton will probably be retiring come 2016, although Gilmore and Howlin probably could make another stab at it. Even still, if they give up power now, they won’t taste it again.

I see individual Labour TDs making a cut and run for it in the mean time, like Willie Penrose. A wholesale pull out of government will either happen late in the day or not at all.

Anyone remember this: http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/2918/labourad.jpg

Amazing how quick things change once they get into power!

@ Kelly, his flowery populist prose is like something a Fianna Failer would come out with, alright!

Look, no one likes the economic reality-but cuts have to be made. Those who would drive a stake between Kenny and Gilmore with ham fisted essays are only opening the door for Fianna Fail to get back in again, and indulge in auction politics that we can ill afford, every November.

Reform is necessary, and will happen.

This IS NOT about child benefit alone. I don’t want to see Labour go the way of the Green Party.
I’m not a Labour supporter but if they become as ineffectual and as pawns to be played around with as the Green Party did under Fianna Fail, they will go down the same route of destruction.
…And if that happens, the chances of Fianna Fail getting back in increase dramatically – and THAT I do not want!

@cimada, you sound like you have no children, possible single,living in a bedsit or at ur parents more likely with a minmal outlay in reality.At present you proberbly havnt a real clue about the situation parents and morgage payers are in.Thankfully thats a good thing for you.Long may you be blissfully ignorent and just put up with all that is taken from you.Good luck on that and hope not to see your face in a crowd chanting slogans to save a hospital or because you no longer have a job.

Support having children – yes. Supporting everyone at the same rate – yes too. Why to punish people who earn a lot and pay lot of taxes same time? Why would they have to provide to all leeches not bothered to get good education and good job? I think too many socialists on this forum :)

It’s not always the case that people have kids when they can’t afford them. A lot of people had children and have unfortunately lost their jobs in recent times and have had to rely on social welfare to get through. I agree that social welfare needs major reforms and fraud needs to be tackled but it just seems to me that the government are hitting the wrong people. I also think children’s allowance should be means tested

Lower income families struggle to pay bills and feed kids…im lower income and I dnt drink, smoke or socialise. Dont tar everyone with the same brush.

Very well said Joanne! I’m a loan parent and I don’t smoke or go out or spend money on luxuries! Its far too easy to tar everyone with the same brush! There are people out there who take advantage of social welfare and a lot of fraud going on but I don’t believe for one second that all lower income families can be lumped in with people like that. The majority of lower income families I know are struggling and this cut will really hurt them!

So Andrew, I assume you’ve done some research into the spending habits of lower and middle income families to come out with a statement like that. Otherwise it would just be baseless garbage. But couldn’t be that surely…..

Andrew that is a dispicible generalisation…

Hi Johnny, your comments weren’t deleted. If you are viewing the story using TheJournal.ie app sometimes all of the earlier comments aren’t visible.

Emer

Not voting is a democratic right, because once you vote you bind yourself to the decision of the majority. The right to express opposition outside of parliament is a cornerstone of democracy.

When you have seven bad apples in a barrel, what’s the point..

If someone chooses not to vote that is their constitutional right . However choosing not to vote bars that person from having an opinion on any decisions made in the lifetime of that government.

I suppose you know you don’t Have to apply for it!

What has Catholicism got to do with it?

You sound bitter.

So u will b handing back ur c.b every mth….?

Blair, I fear for you if you compare having a child to going on holiday or buying a car, unless you regard children as a consumer commodity.

your in for some shock if u think having a child is like going on hols i know you r only winding people up but choose a better topic then kids

Blair.. we’re a form of welfare state; i.e. we allude to looking after the more vulnerable in our country.
Pensioners, unemployed, the sick, children (and their rearing) are assisted.
If we forget about the kids people could forseeably have less. That won’t help anybody.

You obviously is not needing that money and obviously don’t have a child depending on that money to have food on the table. Your opinion is selfish and doesn’t apply to the current country situation where unemployed parents are dependind on that money to provide the basics to their children.

It is actually worse than that. Subsequent children actually get more.

It comes to 1686 per month for ten children.

Yes an what abount families with one child that are relying on that €140 to buy the clothes and fuel to keep their child warm and only have €300 to buy food, pay for what is supposed to be a free education. You obviously look down on those who are vulnerable so why dont you stand back and take a good hard look at yourself and count yourself lucky that you arent relying on it instead of making smart comments about people who need this money through no fault of their own.

Take a look at the dole queues Andrew. And how much they have increased since the recession started. All of those people who had jobs before this recession hit probably said yeah, lets start a family. I’m working, everything is ok. Circumstances change. These people are now struggling to feed their children through no fault of their own. Should they now just give them back because their planning didn’t work out? You seem to be of the opinion that people just “pop out” children and worry about looking after them later. But that is not the case at all. If people were to sit down and consider every scenario that might happen before they have children then the population would be dramatically reduced. No-one can predict the future, you can only hope it will be a good one. Unfortunately, for a lot of people, the future now looks bleak.. And I’ll say it again, through no fault of their own.

How dare you , use that term with regards my children and the children of this nation . I am disgusted by your LACK OF BREEDING . Andrew Telford , or maybe you are just a troll!

Eileen, dont listen to Andrew, he is just another FF/FG/Labour croney, willing to sell his Mother to protect his own income.

That’s what unemployment benefits are for… were not debating the dole here. Were debating a payment to women to subsidize their having children. It’s archaic from the 1960’s when women couldn’t earn an income themselves and weren’t valued in the job market, when they couldn’t legally pursue the father of their child for support, when domestic violence was common, when women wouldn’t get the dole if there partner was working and we needed make sure a mother got something to feed her kids before the father could blow the families income on alcohol.

Those circumstances don’t exist any more… the same way public servant’s don’t need an hour of on a friday to cash their paychecks.

It’s a remnant of the past that’s now just handing out money and indebting us all further. I stand by my original position. Wind the benefit down and replace it with more money for children’s healthcare, more free childcare places, more social programs for disadvantaged kids and less vat on healthy food. Where it can actually impact the welfare of children.

”Those circumstances don’t exist any more…” You haven’t got a clue .People are suffering ,

Evidence please?

Andrew … You are a troll. Go read all of the above posts.

Evidence? Statistics? Facts? Income Demographics? X many starving children, Y families who can’t afford food and shoes for their kids?

I actually think its the opposite middle income people seem more inclined to invest it in their children’s well being. Lower income families drink, smoke or gamble it away. Let’s replace it with more money being spent on free childcare places, more readily available public healthcare for children and a lower vat rate on healthy food.
Evidence? Statistics? Facts? Income Demographics?
Answer your own statement !

Sigh…

Me:”think”… “I think”… “I am of the opinion that” If I were intending to preach an absolute truth I would not have explicitly expressed that it was an opinion”

You: “You’re clueless, people are suffering”

A statement… A fact… an absolute

But regardless my time is enough wasted. It’s not my position to bring your literacy up to scratch. That’s what my taxes are for. Or rather the taxes of my grandparents were for. Mine are for teaching your kids to read, grateful or not…. Good evening to you madam

Andrew @ Hillarious. Had such a laugh at your attempts to come across as if you know what life is about ..Your arrogance is probably the best laugh I have had all day. And you have still not given ANY evidence to the dispicible generalisations you have been spouting all evening. I suppose you never benefitted from Child Benefit , because Andrew you were never taught in manners or social graces .

Andrew, whilst I agree to a certain extent with your points that the benefit should be directed more at the children your opinion about the child benefit coming into existence in the first place is a little off. Yes, it was to benefit the mothers who were discriminated against in society but there were plenty of wealthy women around in the 1960’s too. The mistake the Government made was wondering “how can we introduce this payment and not have the rich screaming discrimination too?”. So in was introduced for every child, no matter what their social background. Which was wrong. But it was written into legislation and now they can’t get out of it. Without the rich kicking up about it.

I agree about the childcare. More should be done to provide childcare to give women the incentive to get out to work. I’m at home with my two children (they are below school age) and believe me I would love nothing more to get back to work some days! I worked all my life until I had them. It is hard work with toddlers 24/7 and some days you feel like you’re losing your mind! But the childcare cost for the two is extortionate. It would cost me a weeks wages. I would prefer to spend my time with them when they are young, time goes by so quick and when they are in school, I will go back to work. Believe it or not, mothers want to rear their children themselves, spend the quality time with them when they are young and learning.

The Government now needs to change the legislation regarding Child Benefit and the fairest way possible is to means test it. It is no longer fair for people to receive this benefit who simply do not need it. The definition of benefit is help or aid. The wealthy do not need help or aid. The less well off do.

Needs to be means tested. Anybody who can save child benefit payments and use it for holidays and other luxuries should not be receiving it.

To have someone who will pay taxes and keep funding your pension (i know you funded it yourself you say, but it doesn’t work quite like that) when you’re retired and stretching your legs at costa del sol ??

So let me get this straight, we should bankrupt the state by paying child benefit to ensure we produce kids to get us out of bankruptcy?

Mum pocket money ???

Increase dole? Are you serious? We already have some of the highest unemployment benefits in Europe. We need to encourage people to work, not encourage them to stay at home. Exactly the same with child benefits and a tax system that discourages both parents from working (it’s less bad than it used to be, but that’s hardly a glowing endorsement).

I’ve every sympathy with people who are out of work and struggling to make ends meet, but unless we encourage people to start businesses, even modest ones, the lack of jobs will go on and on.

I rely on child benefit to help balance the account before the mortgage gets paid. We’d be fucked only for it. It’s far from pocket money.

The childrens benefit I get Helps towards shoes and coats for my children. The football club fees ,schoolbooks and uniforms.Far from ‘pocket money’ .

Enda Kenny’s wife may see it as pocket money but I certainly don’t!! I only wish I could!!

Mary, my children are gone past child allowance and I never got the kind of child allowance that is now available. If I had difficulty with ‘the government paying me to have children’ I wouldn’t apply for it and I wouldn’t go around ranting against the catholic church which has absolutely nothing to do with it.

I really DISLIKE that term for child benefit . It puts all mothers on a cheap level. Every one has a mother !!!