Willie Penrose (Westmeath, Labour)

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 3, before section 1, to insert the following new section:

"1.—The Minister shall within 6 months from after the passing of this Act prepare and lay before both Houses of the Oireachtas a report on the impact of the social welfare system on one parent families and on proposals to remove the restriction on formation of a family unit which presently applies to recipients of such payments, and to alleviate the requirement that income disregard be assessed by reference to any particular week rather than averaged over a year or other period.".

One-parent families are extremely important. I told the Minister yesterday that this area must be examined with great care. I know he wants to be innovative and has some forward thinking ideas in this regard but it is important that we do not create a plethora of traps in terms of the way families are treated in the constitutional context. Sole parents are increasingly disadvantaged as a group in terms of poverty, social welfare dependency and access to services that help address these issues. Many lone parents have not benefited from the Celtic tiger boom due to the lack of necessary supports. Indeed, many children in one parent families are more at risk of ongoing poverty and social exclusion.

We need a coherent policy framework for one-parent families that reflects the reality of their lives and those of their children. That framework policy needs to be co-ordinated across all Departments and there must be co-operation on implementation across Departments and agencies.

Consistent poverty levels for one-parent household families are at approximately 33%, and 75% of those on local authority housing lists are one-parent families. The real value of child dependant allowances has fallen by approximately 35% since 1994. We must provide flexible and positive support for lone parents who wish to return to education, training and employment and ensure that lone parents and others wishing to increase their participation in the labour market are supported and rewarded. We must develop and pilot suitable supports for lone parents wishing to progress from community employment schemes and an effective mechanism to enable CE jobs serving ongoing community needs to become long term and sustainable. The back to education allowance should make self-employment a realistic option for lone parents, particularly in regard to interaction with other benefits.

The earning disregard in regard to one-parent family payments was equivalent to 18% of gross average industrial earnings when it was introduced in 1997. I acknowledge that the Minister has increased that significantly in the budget, and OPEN and other groups have welcomed it. I compliment the Minister on taking cognisance of the issue I brought to his attention last year that income should be disregarded by reference to any particular week and should average over a year or other period. The new section the Minister is introducing in the Bill deals with that position. This is a forward thinking approach on the part of the Minister which allows him to prescribe regulations.

I urge the Minister to ensure that when he is prescribing the regulations — I know that some of the Minister's senior officials are very aware of this — it is done on a per annum basis. That will ensure that the weekly basis will be taken out of the equation whereby if somebody is only €1 over the weekly prescribed limit, they would lose their lone parent allowance for that period. They would then have to reapply only to lose it again after another six or eight weeks if periodic employment or holiday work became available. This was an administrative nightmare which cost the Minister's Department a fortune. There is no net gain but the person who wanted to take up, say, the An Post holiday job with a view to being made permanent in the long term or a similar type job lost out. They could not participate, but this new section will deal with that anomaly. The Minister should ensure it is not undermined by anybody before it reaches the regulation stage. I salute the Minister for addressing that anomaly, and one-parent families throughout the State should be grateful to him for what he has done in this regard.

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