Ms Niamh Kelly:

Our thinking behind free access to childcare for all one-parent families is in response to the huge barrier that lack of such access presents for accessing education and quality employment for families. The national childcare scheme provides free hours for families but it is tied, in large part, to a parent's participation in education and employment. We would like to see it follow the child so all children in one-parent families can access childcare, allowing parents to take up part-time work or education opportunities and focusing on the development of the children in these families. It is another pillar of the EU child guarantee that all one-parent families have access to free early and school-age childcare.

Currently, in the case of families whose children are approaching 14 years of age and seven years of age, payments change from the one-parent family payment to the jobseeker's transitional payment and then on to the jobseeker's allowance. What we see at these stages is that the care needs of those families do not change; they still need access to care for their children. Investment in school-aged childcare, historically in Ireland, has been low, and that is an area we would like to be addressed such that it will not just be about early years care and education but also about those children who go to school, particularly at those touch points where parents move from one payment to another and are activated back into employment.