Mr. R?n?n Hession:

I will go first. I counted seven areas but I will cover them as best I can. The Senator can remind me if I have missed anything.

On the publication of the child maintenance review group report, I understand the report is with the Minister. It has been submitted. This is a very complex area and there are other Departments involved. It is not purely a social welfare issue. The consultation has been ongoing but I understand the intention is to publish the document before the end of the year.

With regard to the exclusion of maintenance from means, I understand the Senator's point. It is one of the core issues concerning the review group and will be dealt with in the report.

On the requirement to be genuinely seeking work, there were changes made to lone parent payments about ten years ago. It used to be the case that you did not have to seek work until the child was 18, or 22 if he or she continued in education. That was changed about ten years ago in response to an analysis of long-term outcomes. It was found that being out of the workforce for a long time did not result in good outcomes for lone parents. This is why there was a change to bring about the current two-payment structure, whereby you get the one-parent family payment until your youngest child is seven and go on to a jobseeker's allowance scheme when the child is 14. The decision was made at the point I have mentioned. You become subject to the condition requiring you to be genuinely seeking work. There are no proposals to change that, although we have signalled changes to working-aid payments more generally that may be helpful to lone parents in terms of flexibility.

On the point on couples and the requirement to be genuinely seeking work, that there is no obligation regarding the increase for a qualified adult, IQA. This links to some extent to the Senator's point on individualisation. What do we mean by individualisation? Under the current system, we can split a payment between the two members of a couple. In other words, the money can be split between the two individuals. With regard to where there is a benefit payment, namely, a payment based on contributions rather than means, generally speaking members of the couple both get a payment in their own right.

The Senator is right that there is no conditionality concerning qualified adults. If one moved to an individualised system where the qualified adult got a payment in his or her own right, the question would arise as to what that payment should be. What would the conditionality be? Should the payment be a jobseeker payment? In other words, the person would be expected to be genuinely seeking work. If there are children in the frame, would one apply something more like a jobseeker's transition payment in respect of which there is a level of engagement? That is actually the model that the NESC recommended for IQAs. Individualisation can mean different things. If it is a matter of simply splitting the payment, we can already do that. It does not happen that often, probably because it does not lead to any extra income for the household.

I want to check my understanding of a certain point that the Senator made. When it comes to individualisation, the first step is to have everyone agree on what we mean by it. In an earlier reference, on the pension side, I understood the Senator to mean that for a household with one income, which could be substantial enough to mean the other partner would not get through a means test, one would design individualisation in a way that would result in a complete disregard. Therefore, the other person would be treated as having no means. That is a possible model of individualisation but in this regard, I note the Commission on Taxation and Welfare has outlined some principles that are worth examining. There are four or five bullet points on how it would work. One will still have regard to household income. We need to consider what the individual gets but also what the household gets. Ultimately, means testing is to ensure that scarce resources are targeted at those most in need. Can the system be designed whereby everyone in a household with a high income is assessed separately and the second partner in the household gets his or her own individual payment on a means-tested basis? Yes, of course. These are all choices for policymakers. There may be very good reasons for decisions, including those concerning independence. As civil servants, our job is to make sure that everyone understands the implications.