The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr McDowell, has said that any tax on child benefit would be "counter-productive".
The Minister, who addressed a national conference on childcare in Galway yesterday said he had not heard of any Government proposal to tax child benefit, in spite of recent "newspaper articles" relating to measures the Government might be considering in the current financial situation.
The Minister said he "doubted" that it was on any agenda, and he would not support such a move if it was.
He told a conference of childcare experts that the sector in Ireland was no longer ad hoc and was now "increasingly coherent" with an "evolving professional identity". By incorporating childcare into the National Development Plan, the Government had acknowledged that there was a major need to support and expand the sector - one which not only helped parents to engage in work, training and education, but which also helped children to develop through their earliest years.
The Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme was making more than €430 million in EU and Exchequer funding available to develop childcare over the seven years of the plan, the Minister said.
