Mr. Brian Power:

We will try to get to all of the issues. The question at the outset was on gross versus net income. A range of schemes are run across Government which use various means of income measurement. For the student grant scheme, it has always been thought that gross income was the fairest place to start. It means there will be no change to eligibility caused by decisions made within families about expenditure. Other schemes, such as those run by the HSE, allow for some expenditure to be taken into account in various areas, but in some social welfare schemes, means testing is carried out on the basis of gross income only. They may not, however, be the best examples to use. The student grant was examined previously and the conclusion was that gross income was the fairest place to start.

There are a number of income disregards to ensure that less well-off families should not have their social welfare income or outboard payments included in the assessment of income overall. There is a range of ameliorating measures in the scheme to help ensure gross income is reduced accordingly, where those measures impact on people from the point of view of social protection.

The issue was raised around the introduction of a broader and fairer means test, signalled by the Government. While there is no agreement at this point the issue remains under consideration in terms of fairness in means testing. That is still on the table, but it is an issue of policy for the Government to see how, if and when that should be done. That is the current status. On the issue of the one-parent family I will ask my colleague, Eilish Bergin, to make a comment on that.