Ciara Conway (Waterford, Labour)

The reform of the social welfare system that is being provided for is long overdue and is necessary in the interests of those who find themselves in unfortunate economic circumstances, for example having lost their jobs. It is right that we are engaging with them in a meaningful way, rather than tossing them on a heap and putting them on a course or giving them some sort of null opportunity that does not allow them to go on and engage in the workforce. I have seen that happening at first hand over many years. I commend the Minister on her endeavours in this regard.

As we all know, the reality is that the Department of Social Protection is one of the highest spending Government Departments. Some of the changes that are proposed in this Bill could be mitigated if we were to adopt certain measures, particularly with regard to lone parents. These workable low-cost measures have been suggested to me by the One Family group, with which I have been engaging on a continuous basis in recent weeks and months. Such measures, which could help lone parents to return to the workplace, require support across Government Departments. It is worth making the point that the Department of Social Protection is not the only Department that should get involved when people such as lone parents become unemployed and are unable to access work. I suggest that the Departments of Children and Youth Affairs, Education and Skills and Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation should be involved in a joint approach to helping to solve such problems. Crossdepartmental and interdepartmental efforts are needed to support such women or men as they try to return to work. A degree of flexibility should be provided for when lone parents transition to jobseekers' payments. If it could be negotiated between the Departments that they would not have to work full-time, but could instead be allowed to work for 15 hours a week during school hours, I believe it would be very workable.

As highlighted last week, we need to examine issues associated with child care, specifically child care before and after school, and we need to engage with the Department of Education and Skills, if necessary. The many buildings available throughout the country often lie dormant after 2.30 p.m. We need to examine the infrastructure in communities and determine whether we can work cross-departmentally and with community groups to allow schools to be used to supply after-school care for children.

We need to encourage staff in Solas and the social welfare offices to consider carefully the needs of lone parents who want to re-enter the workplace. They must ensure that when the Pathways to Work programme is implemented fully across the country, the specific needs of lone parents will be taken into account. The staff should interact on a one-to-one level with lone parents so there will be a good outcome, but not only for the parents. If a parent is working or completes his or her education, his or her child is 80% or 90% more likely to complete his or her education and engage in employment. I hope the staff in the social welfare offices and Solas will take this into consideration in this time of transformation and reform.

We should monitor the circumstances of lone parents engaging with services and getting involved in education. We should determine where we can make useful low-cost changes. Lone parents who have engaged particular services may not have had the outcome they desired for themselves and their children. We need to pay particular attention to this to determine whether we can change and be flexible in order to meet the needs of people who present in our offices, rather than have a one-size-fits-all approach. We live in very different times from those of 15 or 20 years ago and, therefore, we need to have flexibility built into the system. We are often criticised for the stringent and inflexible approach applied to those who find themselves in difficult circumstances.

We can work together to change attitudes among employers with regard to their openness to and acceptance of lone parents in the workplace. I refer once more to social attitudes and flexibility. It need not cost vast sums of money to address the problem, and an improvement and openness in work culture could certainly benefit parents who are struggling by themselves.

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