Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)

With all due respect, the Minister is missing the point. In the circumstances I have outlined, if that man had a natural child of his own there would not be an issue. That is because the natural child would be a qualifying child under the legislation and the man would be paid the one parent family payment for all three children. Equally, if the man was a widower or a separated married man, he would qualify as a parent. The issue is not that there would be a foster payment and a one parent family payment. The issue concerns the current definitions concerning the qualifying child and the qualifying parent.

The unusual circumstances I outlined to the Minister have shown up an anomaly in the legislation because in this family situation they neither meet the qualifying child definition nor the qualifying parent definition. At a senior level, the Minister's Department has identified this as an anomaly that needs to be dealt with. We have been through this on Committee Stage and I am disappointed the matter has not been addressed. I expected the Minister to come back to us with proposals on Report Stage and it is disappointing that nobody seems to have bothered to do it.

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