Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I have been listening to the Minister for a while now, and there is one thing I must say: she almost got away with it. A major sleight of hand has taken place in the Dáil this evening with regard to a provision that 99.9% of the population do not understand. Last week in her Second Stage speech, the Minister highlighted the fact that she believed the age of seven was unsuitable as a cut-off point for one-parent family payments. I and most others involved in the debate have been concentrating on this issue. The Minister said she did not want to change the system of one-parent family payments for seven year olds unless she gets a bankable solution in the budget next year. All the debate, to my knowledge, has been on that subject. However, what is really happening here is the introduction of draconian emergency legislation which will have legal effect on Thursday of next week. This has been overlooked by most people; the Minister just about put it on the record herself when she was speaking. It is important that people are conscious of what is being discussed under this section, because most people have not dealt with the harsh reality of what is to happen. What the Minister is saying is that from next Thursday, 3 May, anybody applying for a one-parent family payment in respect of a child of 12 years or over will not receive it, and in seven months' time, on 1 January, a person applying for a one-parent family payment in respect of a child over 10 years of age will not receive it. The seven-year cut-off then kicks in on 2 January 2014, which is another year down the road. However, I want to concentrate on what is to happen next week and the following week. I ask the Minister to address this issue.

I will give a scenario that will bring this into sharp focus. There are people out there who are happily married, cohabiting or in civil partnerships and raising children of 12 or 13 years of age. In those families, if one parent dies next Thursday or any day after that, the surviving parent will not be entitled to one-parent family payment in respect of a 12 year old child. Up to now, he or she would still receive the payment if the child was 13, but we are passing a Bill to change this. Actually, we are not passing it; the Minister is passing it and we will vote against it. Legislation that is being guillotined in this Chamber today and tomorrow provides that if a parent dies after next Thursday and the youngest child is over 12 years of age, the surviving parent will not receive one-parent family payment. That is my understanding of what is contained in the Bill. The Minister made it clear in her statement, based on her briefing notes, that the relevant age will be 12 years. The relevant amendment refers to a child who is over 12 years in respect of any claim for one-parent family payment relating to any day during the period beginning 3 May 2012 and ending at the end of 2013. This new provision kicks in next week.

The Minister pulled a con-job with the numbers today; I will come to that in a moment. She said that those who have been in receipt of this category of payment up to now are receiving payment for children up to 18 years of age, and that this cut-off point will gradually reduce to seven years of age by 2015. Those who are in receipt of payments only for the last 12 months will be cut on 1 January next year in respect of any child over 12. The year after that, payments will be cut in respect of any child over ten, and the following year they will be cut in respect of any child over seven. However, new applicants - that is, applicants after 3 May, which is next week - whose youngest child is over 12 will not receive this payment, and from 1 January next year this will apply to children over ten years. Up to now, all the public focus has been on the cut-off point of seven years which will apply from 2014. I even asked the Minister whether it was necessary to pass this section now, since the provision is not coming into force until 2014, and asked her to take it out of the Bill.

We received the 23 pages of amendments to the Bill for the first time this morning. I thank the officials in the Bills Office for getting them out to us; it is not their fault this is rushed legislation. It is similar to emergency legislation. I do not think the public realise that the new provisions are kicking in next Thursday, 3 May.

The Minister said this provision was not really intended to save money; it was a measure to allow lone parents to become financially independent. She is going to cut their payments to make them financially independent. Where is the logic in this? If one is in receipt of a payment for a long period, one is dependent on the State, yet the Minister intends make these people financially independent by cutting their payments. If she extended that logic to people on long-term jobseeker's allowance, she would try to increase their financial independence by abolishing their payments. Everybody wants to be financially independent, but there will always be a certain number of people for whom this is not possible for one reason or another. I reject this logic.

The Minister engaged in some sleight of hand with the figures before she left the Chamber. It is only half the equation; what she said was true, but not the whole truth. That is important. She said that only 155 people would be affected this year, 765 next year, 2,000 the following year and 2,400 the year after that, and that by 2015 or 2016 only about 11,000 out of 92,000 currently in receipt of payments would be affected. That is nonsense because it considers only one aspect of the impact of these changes. One does not need to be a genius to work this out - in fact, a child of seven would be able to work it out. If there are 92,000 people in receipt of this payment in respect of children who are over 14 years of age, and the cut-off point is changing to seven years of age over the next couple of years, one is halving the number of people who will be eligible for the scheme. Payments to 46,000 families will be affected by these changes within a few months, when we hit the seven-year cut-off. The Minister gave figures today for those who are currently either in the system or entering it and those who will be affected by the annual reduction in the coming three or four years. They are only half-true. The real truth about this change is that from next Wednesday the Minister will prevent new people who would have been entitled to be on the scheme from entering it. That is where the real cut will be, for those who had an expectation, whose children are more than 12 years of age. If, God forbid, the parents were to split up or if one of them died next Wednesday, there is an expectation today that as lone parents they would be able to get the one-parent family allowance. That will not be the case after next Thursday. Over a very short period, if the age group is halved, the number of people in receipt of this payment will also be halved and 46,000 people will be affected by the change in the coming years as new people are no longer entered into the system. They will leave at one end because they are getting older but the Minister will also stop very many people aged more than 12 years from getting into the system. Her figures are correct but they are only part of the picture and it is important that it be corrected.

I want the Minister to explain to us why she is proceeding with this change. The main debate before lunch was about commencement dates. Here we are considering a commencement date from next Thursday. One of the items the Minister has put into the record is the chart in the briefing note we received. The concentration has been on the people who are already in the system where the figures will take some years to work down. For those who are entering the system after 3 May, things will operate at a much lower level in respect of children aged over 12 years. From 1 January next a lone parent whose youngest child is more than ten years of age will not be eligible for this payment. We are moving from one situation today to another next Tuesday. If a lone parent makes a new claim that claim will be allowed only if the youngest child in a house is under 14 years of age. In one step that is being cut and from next Thursday the parent will get the payment only if the child is aged under 12. In seven months time that age limit will be cut to ten years. In a period of seven months, therefore, we are cutting out all new applicants for the one-parent family payment where the youngest child in the house is aged between ten and 14 years. That is a massive chunk of people to cut from any system. We spoke about transition and moving on when the children were aged seven, but we are cutting all these children out.

We can consider some of the changes that happened in previous budgets. Those aged under 18 qualified until 2011. In 2013 the limit will be cut to those aged under 17 and in 2014 only under-16s will get the allowance. In 2015 it will be confined to children aged under seven. There is a transition period of four years to bring the age from 18 to seven years but we are to have a transition period of seven months to bring in a cut, changing a limit where the youngest child is 14 to one where the youngest child is ten years of age. That will apply from the beginning of next January.

For that reason, in addition to the subsequent debate we can have on the Scandinavian child care measure and whether it can be introduced, the debate here is about the draconian emergency measures that are being guillotined through the Chambers of the Dáil and the Seanad this week in order that they can come into legal effect next Thursday. It is an outright disgrace. A Minister of the Labour Party should be ashamed of herself.

I accept that many Members generally support such an issue, such as the Minister of State opposite, Deputy Shane McEntee. They probably believe this needs to be done and people should not be getting all these payments. I do not believe that is the view of the majority of people who voted for the Labour Party. Its members will rue the day they made these changes.

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