Seán Kenny (Dublin North East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is a truism to say the best route out of poverty is through work. I am confident that the back to work family dividend will prove to be a successful initiative for out-of-work parents with dependent children. It will help people to build a better financial future for themselves and their families. As such, the Bill is intended to provide the legislative basis for the introduction of the dividend, as announced in budget 2015, to help jobseekers with families and lone parents to return to work. It also provides for a number of other changes to the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005, including the extension of the jobseeker's allowance transitional arrangements to all lone parents where the youngest child is between the ages of seven and 13 years. Under the transitional arrangements, certain former recipients of the one-parent family payment are exempt from a number of the conditions applying to the jobseeker's allowance scheme such as the requirement to be available for and genuinely seeking full-time employment, up until their youngest children reach 14 years of age.

Budget 2015 provided for the introduction of the back to work family dividend scheme to provide a financial incentive for recipients of the one-parent family payment and jobseekers with children who had ceased claiming their social welfare payments on account of these persons or, where applicable, those persons' spouses, civil partners or cohabitees, to take up employment, increase hours of employment or take up self-employment. In addition to family income supplement, FIS, the dividend will act as an incentive to work. It will operate during the period of economic recovery and be available to jobseekers and lone parents who take up or increase the level of their employment at any stage up until the end of March 2018.

A person who meets the eligibility criteria for the scheme will be entitled to a weekly payment for up to two years following the ending of the claim for the jobseeker's one-parent family payment.

The rate of the back-to-work family dividend will be based, in the first year, on the rate of qualified child increase being paid to that person immediately before they cease to claim the jobseeker's payment or one-parent family payment, subject to a maximum overall weekly payment of €119.20 and will be half of that rate in the second year, subject to a maximum overall weekly payment of €59.60.

While the dividend scheme will commence on the enactment of this Bill, applications are being accepted from people who have taken up employment or self-employment or increased their hours of employment since 5 January 2015. However, the first payments will not be made until the legislative provisions underpinning the scheme come into operation on the enactment of the Bill. Payments will be backdated where the date of application is between January and the date of enactment.

The Government is making significant progress in getting people back to work but momentum for this needs to be increased. Budget 2015 introduced this new and innovative scheme to help jobseekers with families and lone parents to take up employment. Essentially, it will provide a financial incentive to jobseekers and recipients of one-parent family payment with child dependants to take up employment, increase the hours they work or become self-employed. The dividend will be paid in addition to the family income supplement.

I commend the legislation to the House.

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