Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations and for the work both organisations do on an ongoing basis. It is very important, as is their policy engagement. I particularly commend the Vincentian Partnership's minimum essential standards of living work, which has been a service to all of us as policymakers but also right across the sector by itemising the costs of living. What it shows about the choices people have to make is very useful. I note that, as well as the concept of adequacy, which is something on which we have had discussions before. In a previous life with the National Women's Council of Ireland, I had extensive debates on the question of adequacy in respect, for example, of the minimum wage and so forth. It is a concept we need to bring back in, not to set the limit of our ambition, but to ensure it is met. I applaud the Vincentian Partnership for that.

Many interesting issues have been highlighted but I will try to focus on three. One is in respect of the very good proposal of beginning to look at the question of the under 26s and taking measures in that regard. The committee has previously heard about the demographic shift and pensions and yet over 200,000 young people have left the country. Many have returned but we still have a large number who have left. The question of making sure people are supported is important so we do not have a push factor that pushes young people to emigrate. There are opportunities now but it is still a concern that at a time of great need it was one of our responses. I support the measure. Do the witnesses have comments on emigration or the choices young people make?

The second issue I will raise is a key concern and is one of the tests of the Government and society. In terms of lone parents, we have had alarm bells ringing for years now, which have intensified since the wrong decisions were made in the changes that were introduced. We have clear signals in terms of the high rates of poverty and deprivation and what it does to children. The witnesses have a number of suggestions. One is around restoring income disregards, which I think is useful. We have had a partial roll-back on that policy because it was found that cutting income disregards in no way incentivised people into full-time work; it simply led to income loss. The ESRI report shows that another measure, which was designed to encourage people into full-time and well-paid work has driven people, for fear of sanction, into poor quality work. I am talking about the fact that when a child is 14, lone parents are forced onto jobseeker's payments and the care work they do becomes invisible. One of the recommendations we made as a committee, on which I would appreciate the witnesses' thoughts, was on jobseeker's transitional payments. While people would be given employment supports and access to training, they would not be sanctioned and the requirement for full-time availability would be waived. One recommendation of this committee is that jobseeker's transitional payment should be extended until a lone parent's child is 18. Lone parents are usually women. It would also allow for the income disregard for lone parents potentially to be extended because they would be treated as lone parents by the system. Will the witnesses expand on the points they made in their presentations about the costs of teenagers and the facts of families with teenagers facing increased costs? It was highlighted in both presentations. There is a period during which there is higher vulnerability, higher costs and more danger. Will the witnesses address the issue of families, particularly lone-parent families, where the children are aged between 14 and 18? Do the witnesses think it would be useful to extend jobseeker's transitional payment? What other supports do they think would be useful? The qualified child payment was one that got a small increase in the last budget. It was one of our recommendations. It could be improved.

Will the witnesses address the issue of lone parents specifically? They also mentioned the anomalies with regard to the SUSI grant and lone parents seeking to go back to education. Could the witnesses expand on that a tiny bit?

I had two other key questions. One was in respect of the energy payments. The witnesses mentioned energy efficiency in the private rental sector but we should have a public rental sector as well. It is there but it is dwindling. The scope for better energy efficiency supports is an issue. One of the advantages of a public rental model is we can ensure higher standards and better energy efficiency. Where exceptional needs payments intersect with that is an issue.

On the question of emergency payments, families in homelessness were mentioned. We do not want to normalise it. How can we ensure that as policymakers, we push to make sure people have those emergency payments and that people have some discretion to make choices as a family to address their needs and that we are not normalising what is an unacceptable situation?

Gender inequality proofing of the budget is an obligation. Is it something the witnesses will be pressing the Department on?