Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

Making reports to the House poses no problem. We regularly answer parliamentary questions so we should be able to find time to produce the reports envisaged in these amendments.

I hope more lone parents can be persuaded to join the back to education allowance scheme. The number of people availing of this scheme has doubled in the past six years, with the number of lone parents participating in the scheme in 2004 and 2005 standing at 1,309. I would like to increase this figure dramatically and we will examine the best way to do this. From 1 December 2005, the qualifying criteria has been reduced to nine months. We need to attract more lone parents back to education.

The income threshold was increased from €293 per week to €375 per week, which amounts to a yearly salary of €19,500. It is difficult to quantify but this reform will allow thousands more lone parents to go back to work. These substantial reforms of the back to education allowance scheme and the upper limit on earnings should make it considerably easier for lone parents to get back to education or work.

Tapering rent supplement will also help lone parents because they will retain it for a longer period of time when they take up employment. I presented the paper on lone parents to the Cabinet's social inclusion committee, which generally endorsed my view that I should publish it for discussion. This should come before the Cabinet next month, after which I hope to publish the paper. The paper will set out a number of options for helping lone parents. There will be a short debate on it, after which I will return to the Cabinet with solid proposals.

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