Introduction of Children’s Allowance

IN a budget several years ago, the late Brian Lenihan announced improved allowances for the first and second child in a family but not for the third. Michael Noonan ridiculed him and asked if he had been bullied at school by a third-born child.

Actually, when the idea of children’s allowance was first mooted, the proposal was that the allowance would be paid for the third and subsequent child and not for the first two children. Michael Noonan’s remark was the not first time that the children’s allowance was the subject of fun.

When it was first introduced in 1944, it was greeted by the following:
“The other night DeValera did say in the Dáil,
The population of Ireland of late years did fall;
And so to increase and not let it down,
To every child born he’d give a half crown.

I’m a young, single man and I’m fed up of life,
I lately set out in search of a wife,
I married a widow and we both settled down,
And I’m doing my best for to earn a half crown.”

Things didn’t work out very well because he later tells us:
“Since the blooming thing started I’m nearly half dead;
Last night we broke all the springs in the bed;
Said she, ‘sure it’s no use, for I’m sixty-three’.
‘Oh bedad then,’ says I, ‘there’s no half crown for me”’.

So now I resemble a half hungry goose;
Every bone in my body disjointed and loose;
When people pass me, they say with a frown;
‘The cause of your death will be the half crown’.”

With all the talk of cut-backs due to our current economic woes, it is worth remembering that it had been introduced to encourage population growth and ease the burden on large families.
That was the thinking of the time and similar allowances had been introduced in other European countries where there had been a decline in population.
When it was first mooted, the idea got a general welcome all over the country. Nevertheless, there were some questions raised in Leinster House, particularly in the Senate. Some senators wanted the allowance means-tested, limited to certain areas and made a contributory scheme. One even questioned how the scheme fitted in with the social teaching of the Catholic Church.
Another said it could lead to an over-dependence on State payments. He argued that where one family got an allowance, all other families near them wanted the same and said there was, what he called, “a universal competition in pauperism”.
Seán Lemass, Minister for Industry and Commerce, who was in charge of the bill, refused the means-test because the allowance could be seen as a badge of poverty and that making it non-contributory made it applicable to every family.
He did point out the annual cost to the State. At that time, social security services cost approximately £8 million per year, with unemployment relief costing a further £2m. The proposed children’s allowance would add a further £2.5m to that – an increase of 25%. He told TDs that meeting a commitment of that size would be the equivalent of increasing income tax by one shilling in the pound, putting one shilling extra on a pound of tobacco, 2p on a pound of tea, halfpenny on a pound of sugar and a penny on the pint.
At this remove, it is hard to imagine the severe threat putting a penny on the pint was for the ordinary person, not to mention specific taxes on tea and sugar.
In spite of the costs associated with such a huge increase in the social welfare budget, the children’s allowance, payable for the third and subsequent children, was introduced on February 23, 1944 – 68 years ago this week.