Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Legislative changes were introduced in the one-parent family arrangements in the Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2010. These came into effect on 27 April 2011 and reduced the maximum age limit of the youngest child for the receipt of the one-parent family to 14 years. Transitional arrangements were put in place for existing one-parent family customers at the time with the age limit not coming into effect until 2016 as per the table Deputies were given in the handout. Customers were informed of these arrangements at the time. These transitional arrangements will now continue until January 2015 at which point the age limit of the youngest child for receipt of one-parent family payment will reduce to seven years of age. These further reductions will be considered in the context of the further development of relevant activation and support services. Where existing one-parent family payment recipients have a child aged over 17 who is in full-time education, payment will continue to the end of the 2012-13 academic year.

Section 178C applies to existing customers in receipt of one-parent family payment from 27 April 2011 to 2 May 2012. This customer group currently has an age cut-off of 14. This will remain the case in 2012, and there will therefore be no change. The age limit will then reduce on a phased basis to age seven in 2015. These reductions will be considered in the context of further development of relevant activation and support services. From 3 May 2012, new one-parent family payment customers will be subject to the new age qualification criteria for the youngest child. That is, the payment will not be payable where the youngest child is aged 12 or over in 2012, aged ten or over in January 2012 and aged seven or over in January 2014. These reductions will be considered in the context of the further development of relevant activation and support services.

Section 178D deals with the continuation of one-parent family payment following certain disqualifications. It is not desirable that current one-parent family payment customers decline to take education or training opportunities or opportunities to increase employment during the transitional phase. For this reason, recipients who leave the scheme during the six-year phasing-out period to participate in the back to education allowance scheme, or whose earnings exceed the qualifying earnings limit, can reapply for the one-parent family payment based on the age conditions within the saver period - that is, to 2016.

I asked my officials to give copies of this document, which provides great detail, to each of the Deputies, and this was done on Monday.

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