Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)

I do not understand why the Minister says we must distinguish between part-time and full-time work. That is the exact point I am making. We need flexibility in the scheme so that people are encouraged or enabled to take up any job opportunities, even for one or two days a week or for a temporary job of a few hours. We need that kind of flexibility. The scheme as it operates at present was designed for a very different time and there is now a pressing need for the Minister to consider the reforms that could be introduced.

The other glaring problem is that there has been no compensation for the elimination of the early child care supplement. I know the Minister will tell me that people have a year's free preschool care but, overall, in terms of family income, where previously they would have had €1,000 per year per child for the first five years, in real terms that has now been cut to €2,500 in total. Therefore, instead of €5,000 per preschool child, a family now gets €2,500, which is a real and substantial loss in family income. There have been no corresponding compensation measures in the family income supplement to take account of this change.

I ask the Minister to be more flexible and to look at the world of work people are faced with nowadays, where there is flexibility and lots of part-time work, casual work and short-term work. The family income supplement needs to be sufficiently flexible to facilitate people in taking up those job opportunities.

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