John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the officials. Not only do I and many lone parents have concerns, as Deputy O'Dea correctly stated, many organisations also have concerns. I will go through some of those concerns in a moment. We know all of the facts and figures in terms of the numbers of single-parent families. One in four families is a one-parent family. That is a sum of 215,000 one-parent families across the State. We know the figures in terms of poverty. A total of 23% of one-parent families live in a consistent state of poverty. Those figures are not mine; they are recognised and approved figures.

One of the harshest cuts that was implemented and that has compounded the difficulties lone parents are facing was that to the one-parent family payment in 2012. It has had a hugely detrimental impact, not just in terms of poverty or access to education but right across the board. We know that the Minister of the day said that these cuts would not come into effect until we had a Scandinavian-type child care service within the State.

That has fallen off the radar. There is no affordable child care and certainly no Scandinavian model in place here. We will wait to see what comes out of next week's budget but I would not hold out much hope for it. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission report recommended that the State actually reverse these measures that were introduced in 2012, in the absence of an adequate and affordable child care system being in place. That commission has called for a reversal of these measures because of the detrimental impact in terms of poverty and all the other areas. There are questions to be asked around that specific element but I also have other points to raise. I will put the point separately to the Minister later, but based on the recommendation by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, could I get a view from the Department officials who are here now? Has the commission's report been taken into consideration at all by the Department? Has the reversal of the measures been costed by the Department?

Another recent report "Lone Parents and Activation; What Works and Why", commissioned by the Government, carried out by the UNESCO- child and family research centre, is a review of the international evidence in the Irish context. There are some lines in the report about the policy changes to lone parents which certainly strike a chord with me but, more important, show clearly the real world facts affecting the real people about whom we speak. The report states: "[the change] has the

perverse effect of encouraging welfare dependency and reducing household income." We know from lone parents themselves that these changes have trapped them in greater poverty and they feel stuck. They cannot leave their children at home alone, they cannot afford child care and therefore they cannot go out to work. They are worse off than before. This Government-commissioned report backs up the evidence from the real world. Perhaps the officials could offer a view on that.

We have already touched on the lone parent families who are living in consistent poverty, which is 23% of lone parent families. That compares to 8.2% of other families who live in poverty. We know the facts there but the measures that were introduced are compounding the problems of poverty for single parent families. The at-risk rate for single parents is 31.7% who fall into that category. I have specific questions around that report and the poverty faced by single parent families. Of the 23,000 children across the State who are reported to be living in consistent poverty, do we know how many of those children are actually in single parent families? Do the officials have those figures and facts or could they be provided to the committee?

It is clear that in order to tackle childhood poverty it is essential that poverty in one parent families must be targeted. Can the committee get an overview on how the Department is actually going about this? I do not want to put words into her mouth but the witness said that the measures introduced in 2012 have given a certain perception but we need an overview of what is being done to target those families. The reality, on the ground, says differently.

Another serious aspect of the impact of the cuts on single parents is in the area of back to education. There is huge concern. While lone parents on the one parent family payment can receive the back to education allowance, new measures that were introduced reduce the age of qualifying children from 14 years to seven years. People are being told they can go on to the family income supplement but once a single parent goes onto that payment they do not qualify for, or are not entitled to, the back to education allowance. That measure has had a huge impact on single parents which is hard to quantify. I am not sure if it is easy to break down the figures, but could those figures be forwarded to the committee so that we can see how many single parents have been denied the back to education allowance due to these measures?

There has been a lot of talk about another report that was due to be published in August on barriers to educational access for single parents. In the programme for Government it was planned to have the report published before the budget. We know the budget is next week and we know that report has still not been published. All the evidence from these organisations states the measures already introduced are having a detrimental impact on these families and I fear we are now entering a budget without the report. With regard to the back to education allowance, I do not want to pre-empt the report's contents and I am sure the report will highlight some concerns there. Part of the process in the programme for Government was that this report was to be available, so the budget could be framed around some of the measures such as removing the barriers for access to education for lone parents. However, as the budget approaches we have not seen the report. I am not sure if the Department has seen it or is aware of the report's contents. I am not aware of it and I do not know when the document or report is going to be published. Perhaps the witnesses have some inside information from the Minister.

Based on the facts, is the Department seeing the barriers that have been put in place through these measures and cuts removed with regard to facilitating single parents to return to education? Can they give the committee some facts and figures? It is probably difficult to break it down from the overall back to education allowance applications. I do not know if it is an easy process to whittle it down to see how many of those applications are from lone parents, prior to 2012 and subsequently. I thank the officials for appearing at the committee. The measures that have been introduced are a huge area of concern and are having a detrimental impact. They are not helping lone parents. They are actually compounding the difficulties and the real poverty that exists for these lone parent families. The figure of 23% living in poverty comes from 2013 and I would be interested to see the more up to date figures on lone parent families who live in consistent poverty.