Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

The relevant age in Finland is four years. In the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand - members will be aware that many Irish people go to visit or live in Australia and New Zealand, some for a year or two - the relevant age is 5 years. In Canada, the relevant age is six years and in the UK and 90 miles north of here, it is seven years. Is the Deputy suggesting that in changing the arrangements to provide a greater pathway for lone parents to return to education, training or work and become financially independent we are not helping lone parents? We are spending almost exactly the same amount of money, more than €1 billion. We have a social welfare system that is often described internationally as passive owing to the fact that when people take up a specific social welfare payment they are forgotten about rather than assisted in getting employment, thus becoming financially independent. We must offer assistance to people whose education was interrupted owing to their having had a child or children on their own. I do not understand the reason the Deputy fears lone parents becoming empowered, enabled and encouraged to get back into education or training and ultimately, to financial independence.

All of the international and national experts in Ireland who attended this morning's conference on poverty in regard to children made the same point. Perhaps everyone in the world, except Deputy Boyd Barrett, is wrong. Unfortunately, some lone parents interrupted or ended their education at a relatively young age. I make no apology for providing them with a pathway to resume their education and training, leading them back to work, which I did in 1996, when a Minister of State. That was possibly one of the greatest changes in respect of lone parents in Ireland. It has been successful but not for everybody because not enough lone parents have availed or been able to avail of education and training and because well-meaning people wanted to give them financial support and nothing else.

There are companies in Ireland wishing to recruit Irish people but we do not have enough people with the required skills to take up those jobs. PayPal announced 1,000 new jobs at its offices in Dundalk. Not all of those jobs will be taken up by people on the live register in Ireland because we do not have enough people trained and educated in the skills required for those jobs.

I invite Deputies to think about what would change the system to give lone parents better opportunities. I have never heard Sinn Féin Members say that the relevant age of 7 years in the North of Ireland is wrong or that it is wrong that the relevant age in Canada is six years, in the Netherlands five years and in Finland four years. The reason for those age limits is because those countries see families as families, parents as parents and children as children and believe that parents should be provided with education, training and work and that all children should be in families that ultimately have work. We must have an active society in which everyone is included and is a participant. We have a much more passive system here. All international visitors, from the universities and so on, say that the Irish social welfare system is passive. I acknowledge that is difficult for some people to understand.

Deputy Fleming asked why the complexity in terms of the timescale. Having been a member of the previous Government for 14 years, the Deputy will be aware that during the boom - I acknowledge this was well meant - a great deal of additional money was paid out without enough detailed work on services being provided in a whole range of areas. When one looks at a series of areas in social welfare, one finds in many cases that the issue of services is as important as the cash income. The service might even be more necessary than the cash.

A number of Deputies have asked how this country can create preschool and after-school services. In fairness to the previous Government, it adopted the early childhood initiative as an alternative to a direct cash payment. I congratulated the Government on its approach at the time. As a consequence of the initiative, most children of preschool age now receive at least one year of preschooling. People doubt that this country can develop preschool and after-school care services. I think the development of those services will be demanding. I remind Deputies that in the 1960s, the children of working class people did not sit the leaving certificate. They were lucky if they completed the equivalent of the junior certificate at the time. In the 1950s, most people finished their education at primary school level. My parents, like most people's parents, did not go beyond primary school. In the 1960s, we decided as a country that we could and should offer people secondary education up to leaving certificate level. That opened many doors and broadened many horizons for a generation of people in this country.

In the 1970s, the OECD asked this country to establish regional technical education throughout the country, along the lines of what was offered in Dublin at the time. When this country was planning to join the organisation that later became the European Union, there was a suggestion that we would not be allowed to do so if we did not improve our educational standards. As a consequence, educational institutions in towns and cities like Galway, Sligo, Athlone, Letterkenny, Cork, Waterford and Carlow allowed people to access education. I refer to people in this country who would not have been able to access it otherwise. Along with my Labour Party colleagues, I was part of the Government that decided in the 1990s it was right that the child of somebody who worked for Dublin Bus should be able to access university-standard third level education. Before that decision was made, the only people who could usually afford to do so were from places like Killiney on the south side of Dublin. As a result of what the Government did in the mid-1990s, a person from the north side or the city centre - like me - could pass Trinity College on the bus and say "one day I will go there". People were able to do just that.

The Deputies opposite are asking me to believe that a country which has achieved great things cannot develop better preschool and after-school services. I do not know what they think of their own country. Clearly, they do not think much of its capacity to do anything. Ireland is perfectly capable of doing this. It will take time to plan it. A great deal of work will be required. I hope that the next time we talk about lone parents at a conference, they will not stand out for the poverty risks of their children. I hope it will not be the case that so many children of lone parents have not been able to complete or further their education to the extent required by people who want to get good jobs in a modern knowledge-based society. The difficult economic recession in this country was caused by the collapse of the banking sector, the mismanagement of the economy and the bursting of the building bubble, etc. I predicted that much of what has happened would happen. When the Finnish banks crashed in the 1980s, the Government of that country decided to invest in preschool and after-school education, in education in general and in innovation. As a result, Finland is now recognised for its achievement of a better and more equal society and better outcomes for children. Others might not believe in this country's progress, but I do. Our current social welfare expenditure could be better used to give people more opportunities. That is what this is about.

Deputies on the other side of the House have expressed their objections to transitional changes. Deputy Sean Fleming asked why this process must be so complicated. I remind him that I inherited it. We hope to make it less complex. I agree with the Deputy that many of the small changes that were made when large sums of money was spent during the Celtic tiger era require a great deal of understanding. Of course the transitional arrangements will apply to people who are currently making appeals. That is the standard way it happens in the Department of Social Protection. In the case of a person who applied for a particular payment, his or her application will obviously go back to when it was initially made after his or her appeal has been heard. There are many transitional arrangements in this regard. People who go back into the back to education allowance, for instance, will be allowed to come back in. I think the transitional arrangements are good. Deputies need to reflect on the fact that much lower ages are provided for in those countries which are often cited. That does not mean the countries in question do not support lone parents or their children. It means that lone parents and their children receive the same range of entitlements and benefits as all other parents and children.

Incidentally, it will have been noted by my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Shortall, that this approach also allows for the possibility of a greater role for the father of the child. Deputy Ó Snodaigh mentioned that yesterday. I expect that everybody would welcome that. Every child has two parents, even if one of them is parenting on his or her own. Very frequently, the other parent wishes to be actively involved in the life of his or her child. Our system should encourage that. There has been a certain amount of fear-mongering - perhaps inadvertently - on the part of some Deputies in this respect. We are spending over €20 billion on our system of social protection this year, in the teeth of a very difficult recession. Such a large figure indicates that this country attaches a value to all levels of social provision. If we are to retain such a level of payment, we have to make sure that as many people as possible are helped to get back to work. That is important in the interests of their own financial independence and the future of their children. It will help to sustain the strong model of support for social protection that we have in this country.

As I said yesterday, it is important to reflect on certain figures in relation to lone parents. The average duration of a one-parent family payment is 6.1 years. During this discussion, people tend to talk about lone parents as people who parent on their own and are in receipt of State social welfare benefits. Some 92,000 people are in that category. Tens of thousands of other people who are parenting on their own do not receive particular State payments beyond ordinary child benefit or family income supplement. I have mentioned that the average duration of a one-parent family payment is 6.1 years. I mentioned last night that 10% of those receiving the payment have been doing so for one year or less. It is a transitional support for them while they re-establish themselves. Approximately 13% of those receiving the payment have been doing so for between one and two years and 28% have been doing so for between two and five years. This morning's study showed that where this payment is used transitionally - where parents move back into education and ultimately into work - that is the best way of ensuring a lone parent can have an independent financial future. The statistics bear that out. Some 12% of those who receive this payment have been doing so for between five and seven years and 37% have been doing so for seven years or more.

The average durations for different age groups are three years for claimants aged 25 or younger, seven years for claimants aged between 25 and 39, seven years for those aged between 40 and 49, and eight years for those who are 50 or older. Having introduced the reforms in the 1990s, I realise most of those who are 25 or younger return to education nowadays. Those who are over 50 were probably in the earlier system. Younger people are much more likely to go back to education and, ultimately, work, and their parents are much more interested in supporting them.

The two counties with the largest concentrations of lone parents are my county, Dublin, and Cork. Next are Limerick, Donegal, Galway, Wexford, Kildare and Louth. Some 82% of lone-parent allowance recipients are Irish. Some 18% of payments are made to non-Irish nationals. This is a very complex picture. It is important that Deputies have an opportunity to examine the data and perhaps today's report and ask themselves honestly why all the international and Irish evidence suggests that encouraging lone parents to return to education and work, with appropriate child care, including preschool and after-school child care, produces the best outcome for the children. A system that develops in that way will be strongly supportive.

This Government chose to dedicate a Ministry to children, a Ministry for all children, because it recognises it is crucial to give the best possible future to all children, regardless of the relationship status of their parents. I hope the Deputies accept that all the evidence supports what the Government is doing extremely strongly.

Change is always difficult. If, in a perfect world, we had more money, I would invest it in education and educational services. Education, particularly for children, presents the greatest opportunity. I am disappointed that the Members opposite seem to believe this country, which has built secondary, technical and third level education systems, is not capable of building a system of preschool and after-school care. I find this distinctly odd. I hope the Deputies have more ambition for and faith in our country and its people.

All the countries referenced are countries in respect of whose child care systems I have heard Members in the Opposition benches express admiration, bearing in mind that the countries' systems are not perfect. Why have these countries and most OECD countries decided to prioritise giving people the capacity to have financial independence and employment?

In Africa, where I worked and lived for a number of years, the key objective in development was to give women the capacity to earn their own incomes and build their own businesses. It is a question of their becoming independent rather than dependent.

On the complexities of the current lone parent allowance system, Deputy Fleming will have to question his colleagues because they were in charge of it for the past 14 years. The system is complex but there are transitional arrangements. I assure lone parents that the changes, as set out, will take considerable time to come into effect.

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