Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have two sets of questions and I may kick off where Deputy Clarke left off, around lone parents and the child maintenance review group. Given that the report has been ready since April, it would be useful if it was to be published. I request that it be published in the next month or so in order that we can incorporate it into our report because it is extremely relevant. Given that the Department has had it since April, to put it into the public domain would be a useful step. It should be published and it would be useful if we could have it to inform our recommendations. The witnesses might comment on the plans for publishing that in their responses.

I refer to a couple of the other issues in respect of maintenance. The question was asked whether it should be included at all and there is a strong argument that it should not be included; that it is a payment that is separate from the other payments we have. Considering the idea to have a one-parent family payment, which is around support for the parent, versus things like child benefit that are universal, to use maintenance again would not be right. We do not use maintenance against child benefit and we should not be using it against a one-parent family payment either.

On the one-parent family payment and the jobseeker's transitional payment, it was mentioned that childcare was not an area that was seen as directly relevant to the Department of Social Protection but it is relevant in its intersection with one-parent families in particular. There is a requirement after receiving jobseeker's transitional payment that when a child is 14 years old, a one-parent family is moved to a payment where there is a requirement for full-time availability for work, yet they have a 14-year-old child and no other parent in play. Has consideration been given to extending a jobseeker's transitional payment to when a child is 18? That would allow the jobseeker's transitional payment where there is access to supports such as the pilot scheme for access to employment and where there is not the obligation of full-time availability for employment, which creates a lot of tension and difficulty for those parenting alone in that last four years of a child's childhood. It is worth noting that we do not have an equivalent measure for couples whereby we may have a spouse who is not working. There is no full-time obligation for both parents in a married couple to be working in terms of the payment of a social welfare payment plus a qualified adult increase. It seems that there is an unequal treatment of lone parents in that period of time when their child is between the ages of 14 and 18. The witnesses might comment on that.

The other thing on lone parents is the early childhood care and education, ECCE, scheme. It was interesting that it was mentioned that half of those on the working family payment are one-parent families. The working family payment requires you to be working 19 hours whereas the ECCE scheme gives families 15 hours of childcare. There is always that gap between the 15 hours and the 19 hours and I wonder if that is something on which the Department has engaged with the reform of childcare process to look to how that gap between the 15 hours of childcare available and the 19-hour work requirement to get the working family payment might be bridged.

On leave, the witnesses will be aware that one of the specific recommendations from the citizens' assembly was to ensure that the same full year of effective paid leave would happen in respect of a one-parent family. It is good to have the targeted supports which, as Deputy Clarke said, should be improved for men or partners in paternity leave, but where there is only one parent it should be ensured that from the child's perspective, the same amount of leave is given to their parental unit in total. Measures to bridge that should be introduced.

There is strong means testing and it came into the issue with the other Bill we were discussing. I mention cohabitants. If you are cohabiting, that is strongly considered in means testing and there can be a problem there in individualisation and individual economic independence. For example, that is one of the issues that makes it hard for those who are parenting alone to cohabit. If they are responsible for a child and they cohabit, that person's means may get considered against their receipt of payments. In general when it comes to financial independence for women, means testing is a serious obstacle. It was mentioned that individualisation is complex and that it would be good to discuss it further so I would like to provide the opportunity to discuss it further because it seems to be an extremely important issue from a gender perspective.