Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

For a certain amount of the time, the provision would ensure that a category of unmarried persons is not excluded by removing the old anomaly that is there. The current definition includes five different people: widow, widower, separated spouse, an unmarried person or a person whose spouse has been committed in custody to a prison or a place of detention for not less than six months. They must have at least one qualifying child normally residing with them. The purpose of the section is to remove the anomaly whereby an unmarried claimant for the one family payment must be the parent of the qualified child for whom they are claiming, whereas a separated or widowed person does not have to be a parent.

The second aspect is to define the relationship between the claimant and the qualified child to ensure that they have to be the parent, step parent, adoptive parent or legal guardian of the qualified child, that the child must normally reside with them and that this is in the best interests of the child. The term "step parent" has been included because there could have been some cases where the claimant is caring full-time for a child that is not their own, but the parent may not be able to obtain legal guardianship. The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform advised that there were cases where a husband or wife was caring for the children but the biological parent was still alive, so the provision allows for that situation also.

The genuine intention is to broaden the measure. It only applies to new claimants, which is what the Deputy is saying, so that if there is a delay in a person becoming a legal guardian he or she will get assistance as an interim measure. It does not apply to current recipients, so it will be for new claimants. The intention is to broaden it.

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