Ms Louise Bayliss:

We thank the joint committee for the opportunity to talk to members about the issue of child poverty. SPARK is a peer-led advocacy and support group for lone parents. We offer unique insights into the lived reality of parenting alone. I am Louise Bayliss, co-founder and spokesperson, and Gayle Smith is on our steering committee. She is currently undertaking a master's in rights and social policy. Ms Smith can speak about deficiencies in the national childcare scheme which mean she currently pays over 25% of her income on childcare. She is undertaking her master's despite the barriers rather than because of the supports.

Eliminating child poverty is a key ambition of SPARK. We believe that in order to achieve this, we need honest discussions about child poverty. Children are the age group most likely to experience poverty in Ireland. The rate of consistent poverty among children stood at 8.1% in 2019 compared with 5.1% for adults aged 18 to 64 and 2.3% for those over the age of 65. Poverty among children, however, has very different patterns. Children in two-parent families have a consistent poverty rate of 6.1%, whereas children in lone-parent households have a consistent poverty rate of 17.1%. The overall figure masks where child poverty is sited. Without examining these data, real solutions cannot be found.

There have been many reports examining what is needed to lift lone-parent households and our children out of poverty. The results are consistent. We need four things: affordable housing; quality, affordable childcare; well-paid, family-friendly jobs; and enforced child maintenance. Currently, though, lone parents are at the harsh end of the housing crisis, and our children are the most likely to end up homeless or in inadequate housing. The replacement of targeted childcare schemes by the NCS has had a detrimental impact on some lone parents. The minimum wage is below a living wage and, because of childcare costs, many lone parents opt to work in low-paid jobs that can be accessed around school hours. We are one of the few OECD countries that does not have a statutory maintenance system. Many parents are forced to go to court for a child maintenance order. Once the order is issued, there is no oversight as to whether the order is complied with and the lone parent is obliged to follow up on enforcement or, as in many cases, forfeit the payment. This poor maintenance system is compounded by social welfare rules which mean that lone parents lose the support of the liable relatives unit when the youngest child turns seven. Our housing disregard was set in 1997 and, therefore, is in no way reflective of current housing costs.

Those are the overall concerns we have about child poverty. However, if time permits during the session, we would like to discuss three specific social welfare measures. First, lone parents living in independent households are not entitled to the living alone allowance, household benefits package or free travel. This means in real terms that the increase in the qualified child rate is a net payment of €7.42 for under-12s or €15.42 for over-12s. This explains why lone-parent households on social welfare face greater poverty than many other social welfare households. Second is the cliff-edge drop in payment when a parent moves to the working family payment when their youngest child turns 14. We welcomed the report commissioned on the impact of the loss of the jobseeker's transitional payment, JST, last year; however, we were disappointed that it looked only at JST claimants moving to jobseeker payments and did not examine the working family payment. Our interactive calculator, which we have submitted along with our written statement, shows clearly the loss of income. For example, a lone parent working full-time on a net income of €500 will lose over €70 a week when their youngest child turns 14, this despite the fact that teenagers are proven to be more expensive. Third, the social welfare assessment of mortgage payments paid by the non-resident parent increases the risk of homelessness, even in cases of domestic violence.

If we want to reduce child poverty, targeted supports must be directed to lone-parent households. We need the best interest of the child to be central to all Government policies. Therefore, we support the Focus Ireland campaign to end child homelessness. In two days' time, the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence begins. Not all lone parents are victims of domestic violence, but all parent survivors of gender-based violence become lone parents. A key solution to ending gender-based violence, GBV, is to offer parents real options to leave abusers. For many economically dependent parents, exiting abuse leads to poverty and homelessness, which cannot be tolerated as realistic options.