Dr. Mary Murphy:

My point concerns what Mr. McKeon said about how those open to claims splitting for qualified adults would have to be available for and genuinely seeking work and accept the rights and responsibilities. To some degree, that is missing the point that 55% of qualified adults are working part-time. They are utilising the income disregards in the social welfare system. I do not think there is as much of a cultural shift for qualified adults to come in and accept some of those obligations. The problem is that the obligations are gendered in that they are obliging people to seek full-time work. If the obligations were in the context of the way the jobseeker's transition is being rolled out for lone parents with caring responsibilities between seven and 14, qualified adults would engage in that space. Many of these women actually want to work. They think of themselves as moving on. The nearer they get to the system, the more the system will also have a motivation to move them out of that system. It is good for both to make them more visible in the system. The jobseeker's transition opens up the policy space to do that. One is talking about a very targeted group of women being brought into the system but it would have the greatest possible impact on the places where the poverty risk is the highest. I do not think we should forget that. There is such a focus on activation as a way of reducing the live register but activation is also a key part of a national anti-poverty and social inclusion strategy. Those jobless families with children are in the middle of that strategy and we need to make sure we are targeting them because we are not doing so right now.