The Social Protection Minister has confirmed that she wants to tax child benefit for rich families.

Joan Burton said that rather then means-testing child benefit for all parents, she would prefer to tax child benefit for all those with children earning more than €100,000.

It is understood the Department of Social Protection and the Revenue Commissioners recently initiated a full exchange of data that will allow Minister Burton to introduce the measure in the next budget.

However, the Minister says some technical difficulties need to be ironed out first: