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

I thank the Ms Louise Bayliss, Ms Leah Speight and Mr. Stuart Duffin, the representatives of the groups, for attending and for their excellent presentations. I also thank the Department officials for explaining where they are coming from in terms of the Department's side. There are a few aspects of this that I have difficulty understanding. Reference was made to the availability of the family income supplement for working lone parents and the family income dividend and so on, but regardless of that, and taking into account that they will have access to increased family income supplement and access to the family income dividend as a result of the legislation published today, the point is that they are still going to be worse off. Working lone parents will be financially worse off, by and large, as a result of these changes. That is the net point we are trying to make. The figures are there to demonstrate that.

I wonder about the motivation for this. We have raised this issue on numerous occasions both at this committee and in the Dáil and the Minister keeps talking about activation to encourage people, to take people out of the dependency on social welfare and into the workplace. As a result of the changes during the past few years, a lone parent who works fewer than 19 hours per week will now be €54 per week less well off - in respect of one child - than they would have been four years ago. Instead of getting €150 - forgive me if I am €1 or €2 out - in addition to the lone parent's allowance, they will now get less than €100, about €96. How does that create an incentive? We have the family income supplement as an incentive for people to take up low paid jobs, as one gets the family income supplement payment in addition to one's pay. It widens the gap between what one comes home with in one's pocket and what one would have got if one had remained on social welfare. That is an incentive.

In addition, the availability of the family income dividend will enable people, in certain circumstances, who go into low paid jobs to retain the child dependant element of social welfare benefit for a year, going down to 50% after one year, but at least they will be getting something for two years. The fact that they will be getting something is an incentive. That is my interpretation of an incentive or a measure to activate a person. When one starts to do the opposite to that, one creates what I would regard as a disincentive. One of the witnesses said when responding to earlier questions that quite a number of lone parents dropped out of the community employment schemes because the financial provision changed for the worse. That is what happens in the real world. When people get more of an incentive they are inclined to act accordingly and when there is a disincentive they act in precisely the opposite way. That is human nature.