Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 12 January 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection

Issues Facing Lone Parents: Discussion (Resumed)

11:00 am

Photo of Kevin HumphreysKevin Humphreys (Labour) | Oireachtas source

The report is important, especially regarding lone parents. I got into politics in 1999 in local government. I went through what was supposed to have been the prosperous noughties where everybody was seeing the benefit of the Celtic tiger. It made no difference, however, to many people in Dublin's inner city because they never got employment. I remember carrying out a survey where we saw 54% unemployment when nationally the unemployment figures were down to 4% and 5%. There was a cohort that never saw the Celtic tiger. Now, as we are coming out of recession we are seeing very progressive numbers around unemployment. We need - I see it happening in the Department - that targeted approach to make sure people get in to employment and are not left sitting on the shelf. Money and benefits might be thrown at them but they are left unemployed and not sharing in the recovery.

This is critical. It is why the Intreo offices and other measures happening within the Department of Social Protection are key to ensure the targeting. In many cases people are resistant because they have been unemployed for so long and they fear engagement in this regard. It may be a lone parent or somebody who is coming out of an inter-generational home that has not seen employment. Their parents had not worked and sometimes their grandparents had not worked. This happened in the Dublin Docklands area when people lost their traditional dockside work due to containerisation.

There is multigenerational unemployment. There needs to be a target and a review to make sure we have the outcomes we want to achieve. That is where research is vital.

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