Áine Collins (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. The main policy objective of this Government from the start has been the restoration of the economy. The Taoiseach has constantly emphasised that the best and most immediate way to do this is to get people back to work. At the recent launch of the Commission on Low Pay, the Taoiseach said that it is morally unacceptable for families of people in work to experience poverty. He emphasised that work should always pay more than social welfare and that no household with a person in full-time employment should be poor.

For some time there has been a poverty trap that prevented people genuinely seeking work from returning to work. The difference between social welfare payments and minimum wage or low wages was insufficient. There were two traps. The first was income. Now, from April the Government will pay €30 per week to mothers or fathers returning to work from long-term unemployment for each child for the first year and €15 per week for the second year. This means that over two years a family with one child would receive additional support of more than €2,300 to supplement their wage. A family with two children would receive more than €4,600 and those with three children will receive €7,000. It is important to note that this extra payment will not affect a person's ability to qualify for family income support. The other huge poverty trap preventing unemployed and lone parents from returning to work was rent supplement. Under the old system, a person automatically lost their rent supplement when they returned to work. The Government has now also introduced the housing assistance payment. This will mean that those returning to work will retain their housing support and will only pay rent at council rates, as if they were in social housing.

This Bill provides that any payment made from the back to work family dividend will not be taxable. For a family with three children getting €7,000 over a two-year period, this concession is considerable. The dividend will operate during the period of the economic recovery. This will be available to jobseekers and lone parents who make up or increase the level of their employment at any stage until the end of March 2018. There are also provisions in the Bill that will be of real benefit to one-parent families. Section 4 amends the qualifying conditions to the jobseeker's transition arrangements. Some former recipients of one-parent family payments are exempt from a number of the conditions when applying to the jobseeker's allowance scheme, such as the requirement to be available and genuinely seeking full-time employment. This will apply until their youngest child reaches 14 years of age. The dividend will also be available to people who are participating in schemes like the community employment, rural social, Tús or Gateway schemes. In the case of jobseeker's benefit and allowance, recipients must have been receiving a payment for at least 12 months. However, recipients will be able to combine the time they have spent on work placement schemes. One-parent families are exempt from these requirements.

This Bill is to be welcomed. It helps make work more viable for many families. This has always been at the core of this Government's policy. Some 100,000 jobs have already been created. Another 40,000 will be created this year. Measures like this will help the Government reach its target of full employment by 2018. There is a sunset clause in the legislation: section 238F provides the back to work family dividend will cease to operate with effect from April 2021. However, work will continue under the Low Pay Commission recently set up by the Government. We must continually look at the labour market and the social welfare system to ensure that taking up a job is always a better option than remaining unemployed. I commend this Bill to the House.

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