Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

Earlier, the Minister remarked this was not a cost-cutting measure. If it is not, will she tell that to the Minister of State, Deputy McEntee, who is sitting next to her? His contribution was, "If we had the money we would not be doing this".

If one looks at what is being proposed, the vast majority of people have not come out against what the Minister is doing. There is a big if, however, that she recognised last week. We say, "Yes," to it as long as the Minister has the activation measures and supports in place, not only for lone parents but for low-paid families and those dependent on social welfare, offering the after-school clubs, the summer holiday schemes that allow those families who are lucky enough to be in part-time or full-time employment to continue. In this case, the Minister is changing something concerning which her own party was very critical of the Fianna Fáil Government when it introduced a change from 18 years to 14 years. I will return to some of the comments in regard to that.

These are the very people the Minister should encourage, women in the main, but also some men, who are parenting alone and who are in work. She does not have the figures although figures were bandied about. The Department estimates that 46% of lone parents who are in receipt of the one-parent allowance are engaged in some form of paid employment.

The figure could be as high as 60%. When I asked the Department about the people receiving the payment and the number of hours they work every week, the answer I received was: "Information concerning the working patterns of recipients of One-Parent Family Payment is not collated by my Department." It is understandable but the logic in this case is that lone parents are the ones balancing work and family hours. By virtue of this measure, the Minister gives them a Hobson's choice of leaving their children home alone or leaving their jobs to care for their children. There is no other choice. The Scandinavian model the Minister mentioned is not in place and is unlikely to be in place by December. I would love to believe it could be and perhaps a timetable for its delivery could be in place by December. The problem is that what the Minister and the Tánaiste, who I will try to cite accurately in case someone says I am misquoting him, said was that the changes would be coupled with the roll-out of the Scandinavian model. If they are to be coupled, the two should be tied in legislation. We know about laudable policy statements but unless they are specifically laid out in legislation, similar to what I proposed in the amendments ruled out of order, I do not believe it and I do not trust it will be delivered in the near future or in the long term.

The Minister referred to the situation in the North. I never stood here and said that what happened in the Six Counties is ideal. It is not ideal, due to British occupation and because this State has never been a persuader for the transfer of fiscal powers. Even during the negotiation of the Good Friday Agreement, the Government did not weigh in behind the Sinn Féin demand to transfer all powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is easy to throw that accusation at Sinn Féin.

The Minister also said that Sinn Féin is working on the ground. It is good that Labour Party Ministers and members are taking such an interest in the Six Counties. For many years, they ignored it. We are working to ensure our demands in this Chamber will be also rolled out when we have fiscal powers and control of the financial purse so that the Irish people, North and South, can determine the type of society to build. Hopefully the new-found interest of the Labour Party and of the Government generally in the Six Counties will lead to the Government supporting the Sinn Féin demand for the full transfer of fiscal powers next time Ministers meet their counterparts in Westminster. In this way, taxes can be levied and the full responsibility for what is raised and spent will lie with Irish people. We can then move towards harmonising everything on this island and towards uniting Ireland in full.

I pay tribute to groups such as SPARK, OPEN, One Family, Barnardo's, St. Vincent de Paul, the National Women's Council of Ireland and Treoir that managed to pull together the measures intended here. These groups fully understand the consequences of the Minister's proposal. The Minister referred to value for money, how these changes are improving outcomes and suggested the outcomes are not as good as the money spent. I am not afraid of change or of advocating change but the Minister should be careful that she protects the most vulnerable when she is making changes. I am not talking only about lone parents but also young people who will suffer the consequences. Young people are our future. We should be also concerned about their parents and their ability to access work. If we restrict the ability of people to return to education or to avail of part-time work, it will be difficult. The reason the major spend on lone parents is not having the desired effect of helping lone parents to exit poverty is that the other supports required, such as education, child care and activation measures, are not in place. Some of them, such as the transition to work payment for lone parents, have been taken away by the Minister in budget 2012. I am concerned the arguments are not fully representing the case of lone parents.

I will remind the Minister of her party's position a few weeks' ago at the Labour Party conference. The conference noted "the negative impact that budget 2011 [it should be 2012] had on lone parents and in particular recognises that the cuts in CE schemes impacted significantly on lone parents". Reference was made to developing a system of mutual obligation similar to that of the Nordic countries, where parents are obliged to look for work - which is the single working age payment - and in return "governments are obliged to provide employment and childcare support". We are not able to deliver that and I cannot see the Minister delivering that at the same time and on the same scale as she introduces these measures. Will the Minister live up to the obligation of her party to provide child care and employment supports by January of next year? She will not.

The document also refers to devising a focused and targeted scheme providing high-quality affordable child care for lone parent families. This does not exist and these aspects represent two major challenges for the Minister from her party. When Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív was Minister in the Fianna Fáil-led Government and made the change from 18 years of age, or 22 years in exceptional circumstances relating to education, to 14 years of age, Deputy Róisín Shortall, the spokesperson at the time, reminded the House of the following:

Lowering the qualifying age was meant to go hand-in-hand with better child care and training services, the introduction of a parental allowance to replace the one-parent family payment and the ending of the ban on cohabitation. Where are these reforms? There is no sign of them in this Bill.

Nor is there any sign of them in this Bill. Using the yardstick provided by the Minister's colleague, this Bill is an absolute failure.

Deputy Shortall also referred to the reduction from 18 years to 14 years, which did not have the dangerous consequences this change will have. She stated:

The likelihood is that all that will happen is that an extra 12,000 lone parents will transfer to jobseeker payments over the next six years. This will inflate the live register figures by another 12,000 as people on one-parent family payments are not counted at the current time. It is hard to know what the point of all that will be.

This was one of the concerns in the single working age payment report to which I have referred on a number of occasions. If we convert all of the social welfare recipients to jobseeker's benefit, all we do is inflate the numbers on the live register, without putting in place additional supports.

I am aware of the pathways to work and NEAP programmes and I have welcomed these positive changes. However, the pathways programme is not set up yet and some of the changes are likely not to be fully implemented for a number of years. If the Minister continues to undermine community employment, the activation measures may be said not to exist, because part of activation is to try to ensure people who take part in the likes of CE come out the other end with enhanced qualifications and job prospects. It beggars belief that there may not be money available to spend on that training.

I will refer to what Deputy Shortall said previously and I encourage the Minister to look back at what some other Deputies said in their contributions on Committee Stage of the Bill presented by the previous Government and at how vehemently opposed to the change her party was at the time. Fianna Fáil did not promise this as anything other than a cost-saving measure, but at the time Deputy Shortall stated:

The problem is that the Bill is not about activation. It is about cut-backs and the optics of doing something about long-term welfare recipients. How can one call it activation when in the first instance there are so few jobs of any description available? That is the big issue; the jobs are not there.

The jobs are still not there and all we need do is look at the figures to know this. The rate of unemployment compared to job vacancies in Germany is 6:1 while here it is 50:1.

I do not buy the Minister's arguments with regard to this change. Time is running out to make amendments because she has set a timetable for this to start next week. The only logical outcome of what she said last week is a withdrawal of this section, until such time as the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs or the Minister for Education comes in with a separate Bill that will provide for after school care or enhanced supports for children after school and during holiday periods. If this were in place, we could say yes to that trade-off. We could say that if we do this, we will get this other benefit. The roll-out of that type of child care would not be a benefit just to lone parents but would benefit many low paid workers and society in general.

I said earlier I would cite the Tánaiste correctly. He stated: " I repeat that there is a change - it is being done gradually - to the payment of lone parent allowance. It will be coupled with the provision of child care." Coupled means linked and the term implies a physical link, but there is no physical link between what Deputy Burton proposes and child care. There are no legislative links between her proposal and care. The ideal exists, but it is tied into the Minister's Bill and that is the main flaw with regard to her proposal in this regard. I do not know whether the Minister saw the article on cuts affecting lone parents in areas like Donegal. The Donegal child care manager, when speaking about the Minister's plans to have in place affordable child care - similar to that in Scandinavian countries - when cuts are made, said it may come as a shock to know how far Ireland must go to achieve the same standard. That is not a shock to all of us as we know how disastrous child care provision is in Ireland, especially with regard to after school care for children in primary school and younger secondary school students. The Donegal manager said that the Donegal county child care census revealed that there were 570 after school places in Donegal. She said that child care costs in Ireland were among the highest in Europe and that families spend an average of 29% of total income on child care costs. She pointed out that the Swedish system instituted a maximum fee in 2002 which means that no more than 3% of the parents' income goes on child care. There is a huge difference between Sweden and here, but I do not know whether the Minister has talked to the Minister for Finance about her plans to roll out the Scandinavian model.

The figures are stark, but hopefully the Minister will take them on board and will consider, between today and tomorrow, introducing a Report Stage amendment which will have the effect of a sunset clause and indicate that we know this change will collapse unless the Houses of the Oireachtas, through the committee system or some other vehicle will ensure sight and agreement of the roll-out of proper child care facilities to address the change being made by the Minister.

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