The State is in the grip of a baby boom, the latest social welfare figures suggest. The number of babies under a year old for whom child benefit was being paid was at its highest in 1998 - at 47,000 - for the decade.
Since the 1995 figures established a new record for the decade - following years of forecasts that the numbers would go on falling and that there would be nobody to support an ageing population - the number of babies for whom child benefit is being claimed has been bouncing along healthily.
The report shows that in 1998, the taxpayer spent £801,000 on prams and buggies and £460,000 on cots for babies whose parents could not afford to pay for these items themselves. The figures for spending on children also show that many grow up in conditions of hardship. Last year, 209,300 qualified for assistance towards the cost of clothes and shoes for school. Of these, 83,000 were attending second-level schools. Altogether last year, child benefit (previously known as children's allowance) was paid for just over a million children and teenagers, at a cost of £419 million.
Dublin had the highest number of recipients (144,000), followed by Cork (58,000), Galway (25,000) and Limerick (23,000). Leitrim has only 3,060 children receiving child benefit, followed by Longford (4,301) and Roscommon (5,946).