Willie Penrose (Westmeath, Labour)

A public debate has commenced on the social welfare system and what influence it may have had on the proportion of one-parent families. The evidence from the recently published EU survey, to which Deputy Stanton referred, on income and living conditions has highlighted the reality known to most Deputies from their work in their constituencies, which is that single-parent families are most at risk from poverty and the myth of high living at the State's expense is just that — a myth.

If we are to have this debate we need to look in a wider way at how women are treated generally in the social welfare code. Individualisation has been introduced in the tax system but not in the social welfare system. An unmarried couple who are both on social welfare and who move in together to parent their children jointly can lose out financially. I believe the Minister has accepted that this is a problem. We are all in favour of co-parenting. Fathers have rights too and they have a valid case which they have been putting forward forcefully in recent years.

Many women lost out on the chance of attaining any realistic pension cover in their own right owing to the marriage bar. Many of them are covered only as dependants of their husbands. The social insurance system we developed in 1952 came from a world of male breadwinners and stay-at-home wives where it was considered socially acceptable to deal with women only as their husbands' dependants. It is time in 2005 to develop a new model of social welfare coverage rooted in the social insurance principle of benefits as of right but which acknowledges the difference and complexity of women's lives. The contribution of women to society is not only through paid work but also through the care of children and the elderly. We must recognise that concept. It is no use having the Constitution pay lip-service to the role of women and how they have borne children, brought them up and cared for them only for us then to dump them. That was acceptable in the male dominated society of the 1950s but it is no longer acceptable in this age of equality.

If equality means anything then we must treat women equally. We must get beyond this outdated and outmoded concept of dependency in regard to women. To give them 70% of a social welfare payment is not the way to treat women who have often been the backbone of family life. If we have a constitutional recognition of the role, it is time we gave it real legislative meaning. I accept there are myriad difficulties attached to this. I acknowledge that it will not be easy and I know exactly where I am coming from as I have some legal knowledge. If we are to do anything to reform the social welfare code, this must be a fundamental precept of change.

The National Women's Council has produced an excellent report, Towards a Women's Model of Social Welfare Reform, which outlines the kind of practical steps which can be taken towards building a social welfare system which treats women as individuals and not as dependants. Such a system could address the care-giving role of single and other parents in a way that does not pose the current family and welfare traps.

Unfortunately, the barriers to self-sufficiency for single parents was made worse when the savage 16 cuts were tinkered with in the last Bill but were not reversed. The abolition of a crèche supplement, which allowed single parents the opportunity to take up education and training opportunities, was done away with. Cutbacks were also made to the back to education scheme, which was another important avenue of opportunity. Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats emasculated it. We got it back to 12 months and I advocated that it be reduced to nine. I was told that would come but so will next Christmas if we wait long enough. I call on the Minister to bring that forward now and give a clear signal that something will be done rather than more platitudes or statements to the media to the effect that we are one report away from a solution. We are giving the Minister the solution. As politicians, we are out in the field and we know what will work. The Minister should forget about wasting another €35,000 or €50,000 on consultants. He should listen to a few ordinary people. We might not be too well educated but we are educated in the field of political activity and in knowing what people want. We are as good as sensors of what people need as anyone else. The restrictions on entitlement to one-parent family allowance for those employed on modest earnings and the rent allowance restrictions are a problem. The limit of €317.43, formerly £250, for earnings, which was set nine years ago, restricts the ability of lone parents and other low-income families in private rented housing from improving their situation by taking up work. This means that a lone parent with two children in community employment would have to forego his or her rent allowance. I have a great deal of respect for the Minister for Social and Family Affairs because he has grappled with his departmental duties fairly well, but he should wake up and smell the salt.

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