Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

To respond to that briefly, I am always hearing good news in regard to employment and the creation of employment. However, the good news does not appear to have reached my constituency yet, judging by the reaction I am getting from people up to this morning.

I welcome the amendment and the fact that the disregard is being maintained at €90. Originally there was a much higher disregard and the Minister is proceeding apace with the other changes to lone parents allowance, which means that a person must have a child under the age of seven before qualifying for lone parents allowance, otherwise the alternative is jobseeker's allowance. I accept that some of those changes were signalled before the Minister took office but that does not mean I agree with them. She mentioned that more and more lone parents are going out to work. I thought the idea of this was to encourage people to go out to work. If the means test is applied to a person claiming jobseeker's allowance as opposed to a person claiming lone parent's allowance the means test is more generous from the point of view of lone parent's allowance. That means that the changes being introduced make it is less attractive financially for lone parents to go out to work.

If the Government's objective is to encourage people, such as lone parents, to go out to work, many of whom are in low paid jobs or can only take up part-time work because of the cost of child care, I do see how they are encouraged to do so by taking more and more off their earnings as a result of going to work. The rate of jobseeker's allowance is the same as the basic rate of lone parent's allowance. Therefore, the only people who are adversely affected by the changes which are being introduced are lone parents who go out to work, that is the element of their income that is affected. If they stay at home they will be in the same position as a person on jobseeker's allowance. While I welcome the change and do not propose to oppose it I would point out that a result of these changes it is that it is becoming less attractive financially for lone parents to go out to work.