A leading lone parent group has come out in support of child benefit remaining a universal benefit. 
In its pre-budget submission, One Family called on the Government to make modest increases in supports to low-income families with children, according to an Irish Times report. They also urged the Government not to the cut the benefit.
Their call comes in the wake of suggestions by Minister for Children Barry Andrews that cutting child benefit for higher earners should be looked at by the Government in the lead up to the Budget.
Other senior Ministers, including Foreign Affair Minister Micheal Martin and Social Protection Minister Eamon Ó Cuiv, have suggested there might be practical difficulties with the suggestion.
In its submission, One Family says the Government has stated its desire to reduce poverty among lone-parent families, a group which has one of the highest rates of poverty in the State.
“We are calling on the Government to start making this a reality in 2011 by making modest increases in supports for children in low income families,” said policy manager with One Family, Candy Murphy.
“More and more lone parents are contacting us because they are having difficulties in making ends meet for their families. A recent ESRI study has found child poverty has become increasingly concentrated in one-parent families.”
Proposals that child benefit be cut for higher earners come in the wake of the announcement by UK Chancellor George Osborne that anyone earning over £43,875 would have their child benefit abolished.
Asked about the move, Mr Andrews said that it was difficult to justify a situation where the taxes of the lower paid were being used to pay for benefits to the better off.
However, Mr Martin said that there were serious administrative problems with trying to apply a means test to child benefit, while Mr Ó Cuiv suggested that such a move might be unconstitutional.
Meanwhile, a leading columnist in Britain has slammed the Conservatives’ move to cut childbenefit.
Peter Oborne, writing in today’s Daily Telegraph, said that the Tory attempt to brand those earning just under £44,000 as higher earners showed poor political judgement.
He said that the Chancellor “genuinely seems to believe that people earning £39,000 a year (the real cut-off, by the way, not the £44,000 the Chancellor claimed) are affluent”.
This highlighted a problem “which may become very dangerous for Tory high command,” Oborne added.
He continued: “The truth is that anyone trying to pay a mortgage and raise children on £40,000 a year is going to find life tough – which is why the loss of child benefit is so desperately painful and difficult for those on middle incomes. But Cameron and Osborne both come from a social milieu which has no comprehension of what it is like to live on such a relatively modest sum.”
