Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for coming in and for their presentations. As my colleague said, they were very enlightening, with a lot of food for thought. One of the things which jumped out at me and which was mentioned by Ms Maher and Mr. Allen was the complexity of the system in terms of lone parents knowing what services and what benefits and supports are available. There is no streamlined system, and what a person is entitled to in the event that he or she requires access to services is not advertised enough. That is something the committee could think about, and perhaps consider ways to streamline the benefit process.

Another issue I am interested in from a legal point of view is in regard to maintenance, and Ms Kiernan mentioned that some governments provide universal maintenance and then recoup that money from the parents, usually the father. I understand that Finland has a system like that which works well, and it is quite aggressive in pursuing payments. It helps women in ensuring that they have a decent maintenance provision.

Some of us come from constituencies in Dublin and know the problems lone parents face in terms of access to low paid employment. It particularly affects my constituency, Dublin South Central, which includes Dublin 12. Demographically we have one of the highest percentages of lone parents in the country, and I meet a lot of women who are in part-time employment, in jobs which pay just above the minimum wage, and they are not able to get access to education which would allow them to get highly skilled jobs to move themselves to the next bracket. As a committee, it should be a priority to get people from the minimum wage bracket into the proper living wage bracket.

It is a debate we need to have at this committee, as well as focusing on the effects of housing and education. As Ms Maher said, educational supports are one of the most important issues for lone parents, and that links into child care provision. It is a difficult topic but I am pleased to have the delegates' input.

I agree with Deputy Brady that the new rent-certainty measures must be affecting the delegates' clients directly. I have already had calls from constituents whose landlords increased their rent immediately following the implementation of those measures. It seems a lot of letters were sent out just before Christmas by various landlords. Have the witnesses been fielding similar calls from lone parents?