Noel Harrington (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the officials for their presentation. I welcome the changes announced to the one-parent family payment scheme, although they will not be welcomed by every household, as they will have negative effects for some.

The reality is that we have jobless households in this country far in excess of practically any developed country in the world. A huge part of that, but not all of it, is the way we structure the one-parent family payment and the negative effect that structure has on some families. That has to be dealt with.

Senator Moloney touched on some of the questions that arise in this context. Someone who loses the one-parent family payment and goes onto a jobseeker's transitional payment will still suffer an element of loss of household income, even if family income supplement is available to him or her. Perhaps the officials will argue that such a person could be incentivised after a while if he or she finds available work that suits his or her schedule. That is not always possible, as Senator Craughwell said. Have the officials assessed what that loss might be? What is the variable on the 60% increase in family income supplement with the jobseeker's transitional payment? On the other side, what is the loss on the one-parent family payment?

I will give another example. I do not know whether this issue has been discussed at Department level. This approach will simply not work if some employers are trying to bring their employees, such as those who are caught on zero-hour contracts, over the 19-hour limit. Has the Department engaged with some of those employers that are noted for using zero-hour contracts? One would expect they would have the flexibility to attract lone parents into the workplace. That does not happen, however. Some employees might have an issue with reaching the limits of 19 hours per week or 38 hours per fortnight. There is no consistency in that. I think we need further engagement on that.

I will conclude by touching on what Deputy Ryan said. I have been made aware from anecdotal sources that a large number of families do not access family income supplement because they are not aware of it. I think there could be more proactive income-sharing between the Department of Social Protection and the Revenue Commissioners. Many of these people are not on the books of the Revenue Commissioners because their income limits are so low and are not on the books of the Department of Social Protection because they are at work. If an information exchange were conducted, I expect it would reveal that thousands of families that do not claim family income supplement are not earning enough income to be taxed. It would be easy to write to or otherwise contact those families to tell them they might be suitable applicants for family income supplement. Has that ever been done?