FG leader proposes more child benefit

Extra child benefit and mortgage tax relief are being proposed by the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, in a speech setting out the party's agenda for the next five years.

Doubling child benefit for under-fives was the fairest way to help provide child-care, he told the National Council of the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland yesterday.

The best way for the State to deal with child-care was to give an extra child-care benefit to each child under five, payable to the mother.

He also suggested that the limit on mortgage tax relief granted to a borrower should be increased for each person - child or adult - who was being housed through the mortgage.

If present house price trends continued, Mr Bruton said, we could see people looking for extra pay just for living in or near congested and expensive cities.

In the next 12 years, he added, we would have to provide four additional houses in Ireland for every 10 we had today.

He advocated that education should have the top priority in public spending and that education and support for children between birth and 12 should have priority over all other forms of public spending, within education and across the entire budget.

The proposals signalled by Mr Bruton yesterday will be considered by a special two-day parliamentary party meeting next week, setting out Fine Gael's priorities.

He set out six measures required to sustain our economic success: constantly retrain our workforce; overcome traffic problems; deal with the housing crisis; care for families and children; give priority to early childhood education to combat poverty and exempt the low-paid from tax.