Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection Regina Doherty has ruled out means testing the child benefit payment.
Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Richard Curran, Ms Doherty said that such a process would be cumbersome and the focus for the Government is the childcare subsidy, along with free education, free healthcare and parental leave.
She said: "Where I want, and I think where this Government wants to go, is to invest in the children's early years.
"We're attempting to do that by expanding the ECC, early years childhood and educational system, which is now for two years.
"We want to do it to provide the highest quality in early childhood education and care which is being done through Katherine Zappone's department."
Today's Irish Independent reported that the minister had indicated that she was prepared to look at cutting child benefit for households earning over €100,000 so universal childcare could be funded.
Child benefit was increased to €140 per month in the 2016 Budget and free childcare for two-and-a-half years was also extended from age three to five-and-a-half, up to primary school age.
It is a universal monthly payment made to over 600,000 families with children under 18 years old costing the Exchequer €2bn annually.
In 2012, means-testing child benefit was proposed by the IMF as part of the country's bailout.
However, this was not implemented and it has often been argued that it would be too difficult to do as administration costs would be so high.
An Ipsos/MRBI poll in October 2012 suggested a substantial majority of people (71%) favoured means testing the payment.
