Mr. Niall Egan:

The Chairman is correct in that the jobseeker's allowance transition payment does not have the restriction of working more than three days a week as it applies normally to jobseeker's allowance and jobseeker's benefit. What lone parents on the transitional payment are allowed to do is that they can work as long as they want, as many days as they want in the week and they will get a payment provided they satisfy the means test. This is done as an additional support. If the child is young and is in primary school, in many cases the parent will not be able to work a full-time week and it is better to have some employment at that stage than no employment. That is the reason the flexibility was introduced along with the transitional payment.

On the issue of what happens when the child turns 14 years, the parent becomes a jobseeker. That is an old chestnut that the Department constantly faces. The jobseeker scheme is very set in terms of the four-in-seven rule which means a person can only work three days in any seven consecutive days. An hour a day is considered a full day of employment. Most jobseekers actually work a full day of employment per day. We will only support someone with a jobseeker's payment if he or she is working a maximum of three days a week.

Many people ask about switching that time into hours. I can understand their position and in particular cases, such as the home help, I can understand that position entirely. However, from the Department's perspective we have to be very much aware of the consequences of doing a reform of that nature because of the magnitude of that reform. We believe it would involve a significant inflow into the jobseeker's schemes based on the number of people who are working part-time and are not currently claiming jobseeker's payment. It would be substantially in excess of what we are paying already in casual payments. There would be a significant cost to the Exchequer to do that. There is no easy answer.

Our jobseeker's schemes are set in law so we have to treat everyone equally. Unfortunately, as described by Senator Moloney, if a home help is working one hour a day and is a jobseeker but not on the transitional payment if he or she is a lone parent, that person will not be eligible. However, that person could be eligible for a supplementary welfare payment or a payment of that nature.

Senator Moloney also mentioned an incentive for employers to offer flexible hours in order to help the employment of lone parents. We would need to think about the implications of that suggestion. We are currently in discussion with the Labour Market Council to see if it will leverage support about trying to encourage employers to help lone parents and to provide those flexible hours.