NI parents caught in UK crackdown lose child benefit after travelling via Dublin

Terminal 2 at Dublin airport. Many people in Northern Ireland routinely fly out of Belfast but return via Dublin. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA

Parents in Northern Ireland have had their child support payments stopped as part of the UK government’s crackdown on alleged benefit fraud simply because they flew into Dublin airport when returning to Northern Ireland from a holiday in England.

So far 346 families have had their benefits frozen, an investigation by NI online newspaper, the Detail, shared with the Guardian, has discovered.