Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The point I was making last night is that while this provision may appear to be technical, it provides the Minister with permission to commence changes to the lone parents regime, including the withdrawal of the lone parent payment when the youngest child reaches a particular age. We were given an assurance last year that this provision would not come into effect until such time as child care arrangements had been put in place.

Where a lone parent payment is withdrawn, a parent will have to sign on and make a declaration that he or she is available for full-time employment. The parent will then be asked to take up a place on a Tús or back to education scheme and so on. The difficulty that arises, not for parents but for children, is that in the absence of adequate child care places children will be left to care for themselves. One would expect that where a parent leaves a child on his or her own all day social services would, possibly, take that child into care. Yet, an arm of this State will later this year commence an order which encourages this.

I do not disagree with the policy change in terms of providing people with a way back to work. However, I do not believe it is possible to do this without first ensuring there are guaranteed child care places for the children of parents forced to return to work, where those children are below an age at which they can reasonably care for themselves. If the Minister can give that commitment, then it is appropriate to enforce this arrangement. If not, she will be putting parents in impossible situations. Not alone will they lose their lone parent payment but they may lose entitlement to rent assistance. This could become a major issue during the next year.

The Minister referred to the ten new offices throughout the country. While I understand these are part of a pilot scheme, ten new offices will not cut it in terms of the number of child care places required. There are almost 450,000 people unemployed. There are not jobs and places on schemes for all of the people at whom this change is aimed. I urge the Minister to postpone this commencement order until after the pilot scheme is up and running, following which a more comprehensive scheme in respect of the provision of child care places for the children of lone parents who are going to be asked to seek full time employment can be put in place.

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