Ms Karen Kiernan:

One of the things we know is that child poverty is an important framework for the Government. The new child poverty and well-being programme office in the Department of the Taoiseach is welcome. We have used that as a guide in thinking about invidious choices that Departments like the Department of Social Protection and the rest of the Government have to make about how to spend money. Where are the poorest children? How can we provide the biggest impact and support for them? I encourage the committee to also consider that. The Department has gone through a slow but welcome process and is now removing the assessment of child maintenance from social welfare payments which is fantastic. It means parents are now not forced to go to court. There are many benefits to that, but there are a lot of secondary payments and more needs to be done in that area. That will all have a positive impact on child poverty levels.

We encourage the committee to look at the non-care issues. Many lone parents are carers. There are more people with disabilities in one-parent families than in two-parent families. Part-time careers, such as being a professional carer would suit many lone parents if the system permitted it. There is a lot of intersectionality between people whose families are reliant on social welfare in the short term or long term, depending on their circumstances.