Ms Karen Kiernan:

I thank members for their support. I will take some of the questions, while the others will be taken by Ms Maher who is more expert on education and employment issues.

I will start with the Chairman's question on the longer term impacts of the cuts and reforms. As we acknowledged, the policy intention was to support lone parents in moving into employment and thereby out of poverty and dependence on social welfare payments. At the time, the various supports needed were not available because of the lack of jobs and a departmental plan or owing to the fact that others who should have been taking action were not doing so.

We are aware that more people are in receipt of family income supplement. We welcome this. What we do not know - the review of the reforms taking place this year may tell us - are the longer term impacts. Generally, we hear from people when they are having problems. We sometimes know when things are working out for the better, but we do not always know the full position.

Many supports are needed. The child care provision is only starting and it will be a few years before we will be able to see if it is working for families. We also know that many families found it very difficult to recover in the short term after their payments had been cut. We are now hearing more about people who are considering entering part-time or full-time employment because it appears there are more jobs available. That is helping to lift some people, but they are also finding it difficult to balance the costs, particularly if they are in the private rented sector, in which we know the position is extraordinarily difficult. There are always these difficulties and one difficulty is often followed by another. The reality for a parent is that while one policy may help, something else means that work does not pay. We are looking to have an overall view of the customer, the parent, to make work pay for him or her in all arenas.

I acknowledge the point made about parental separation and the link with homelessness. It has been documented in the figures, although it is broader than parental separation; it is family separation. The trauma when parents separate is massive and inevitably leads to increased levels of poverty, decreased levels of employment and emotional difficulties. We obtained a good deal of information in the recent national survey we conducted of shared parenting. One parent commented that she would like to see a national agency to deal with the consequences of separation. Someone who is separating has nowhere to go to learn how he or she can support himself or herself and his or her family financially, emotionally and physically throughout the long, arduous process of separation which is much longer in Ireland than in other countries.

It takes four years before one can think about getting a divorce. It is a difficult process and people fall through the cracks all the time, so I would welcome research to examine why there are more one-parent families in homeless accommodation. Let us look at the impact of separation on that as well.

As I mentioned in the presentation, we have been having discussions with officials from the Department of Social Protection on maintenance and my understanding is that they are looking at that. The country I was thinking of that takes more responsibility concerning that is Sweden. Senator Ardagh also mentioned Finland. It is basically done to prevent child poverty. I have not looked at this recently, but previously the UK's Child Support Agency was not very successful in doing this, and it cost a lot of money. Therefore, I think there is work to be done - whether by us, the Department or somebody else - to look at good models in other countries to see what works well to prevent child poverty and what is affordable for the State to do in Ireland because it is a big and incredibly complex issue.

Our main concern about child care is that it needs to include out-of-school care. A person on their own may need support for someone to mind their child before school as well as after school. People often do shift work, so how can that happen if they are parenting on their own? How can they be supported? While we welcome the new single affordable child care programme, we also have concerns about it.

Schools are an obvious facility that could be used, but at the moment there does not seem to be any lever. In fact, I am aware of after-school facilities in a number of schools which are closing because the boards of management have decided to do that. Anything the Department of Education and Skills or anyone else can do to ensure the provision of high-quality, child-centred, out-of-school care is welcome. It is needed to help lone parents to participate in society.

I will ask Ms Maher to comment on the education and employment question.