Ms Louise Bayliss:

The registration has impact because you have to go through Tusla. As we know, there are only 87 childminders in the whole country. More than 87 became millionaires by winning the lotto. Your chances of getting a childminder are probably less than your chances of winning the lotto. It is not really a viable option. Many lone parents are working in hospitality, retail or care sectors and they are excluded from the national childcare scheme. However, I would add, as my colleague Ms Kiernen mentioned, that it is also about income thresholds for the working family payment and the one-parent family allowance. When that was introduced in 1997 there was no national minimum wage. The first national minimum wage came in in 2000. At that stage, the income disregard for the one-parent family allowance was set at €147.50, which equated to 26.23 hours. If we look today, it is now 12.22 hours. That is going to reduce further to 11.66 hours. What that means in real terms is that previously a lone parent could work 26 hours while her child was at school and keep her full social welfare payment now that same lone parent is working 11 hours. After 11 hours, half of what she earns is being taken off her social welfare payment. That is a regressive step. Something like that, coupled with a living wage, would make a real difference. As I said, faster registration of child minders to allow lone parents who are in non-traditional nine-to-five jobs to get access to that payment would be significant.