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

I forgot to mention something that might solve the problems Senator Alice-Mary Higgins has with regard to averaging. We could put a proposal to the Minister on the question of averaging which would improve the situation for women but would not create losers. A lot can be done for relatively small amounts of money. For example, if we were to restore the provision whereby a person would qualify for lone parent allowance if their youngest child was 12 or younger, rather than seven as at present, the cost would be just €10 million because it would get rid of transitional jobseeker's allowance. I learned this from a parliamentary question I put to the Minister for Finance. We have to encourage lone parents into the workforce but we will not do that by making them less well off when they go to work. Deputy Brady referred to the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance and I note from the Minister's own figures that doubling that would cost €35 million. If he wanted to increase it by 30% it would cost €10 million, which is not a lot of money.

On the question of the way we are treating people under the age of 26, it was, unfortunately, our Government which started that trend. Its successor took it up and ran with it, but I think it was wrong. The Minister should seriously look at raising the rates for people going back into training or education, at least to the level of somebody in receipt of the full rate. An interim payment raises the amount from €100 to €144 or €160 but it should be €188 if they go back into training.