Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank many of the Deputies for their contributions to the debate on this Bill, which provides further help for welfare-dependent families through the introduction of the new back to work family dividend. This will help jobseekers with families and lone parents to return to work or to increase the number of hours they work. We are also enhancing the support for lone parents with children between the ages of seven and 15 by extending eligibility for the jobseeker's allowance transitional arrangements and making changes to the eligibility for families with lone parents. I am using the term "jobseeker's allowance", rather than referring to it as "JA", to assist Deputy Mattie McGrath with the jargon.

All of these improvements have been made possible as a result of the many sacrifices that have been made by the Irish people and the difficult choices that have been made by this Government. This is delivering an economic recovery that is gaining real momentum, as highlighted in the latest quarterly national household statistics and the live register numbers that were published today, which show that the standardised unemployment rate has fallen to 10.1%. In my early years in this House, when we rolled out our plan to get the unemployment rate back down to single figures, we were shouted down by those who said it would not happen within five years and we would not see single-figure unemployment in this decade. We are now at 10.1% and I expect to see us below 9%, or in 9%, within the next couple of months. When that happens, it will be due in large part to the sacrifices of citizens throughout the country.

Deputy Catherine Murphy mentioned the increase in taxation when she spoke about the revenue returns. We need to peel away the statistics to look at what was happening at an earlier stage of this country's limited recovery, which unfortunately continues to be based around many of the urban areas and has not stretched out beyond them. Deputy O'Dea, who has joined us, will agree that there has been some recovery in the main urban areas like Dublin, Galway, Cork and Limerick, but that has not yet been rolled out substantially into rural areas. We have to work on it. People have rightly pointed out that when we first started to see an improvement in the job numbers, much of it related to part-time work. In the latest figures, we are seeing much more full-time employment, thankfully, which means that more people are on good, decent wages. The revenue returns mentioned by Deputy Catherine Murphy show that wages are actually improving.

Deputy Tóibín mentioned in his contribution that in 2008, just 5% of postgraduate students emigrated, whereas that figure increased to 20% more recently. I hope we can encourage many of those postgraduates to come back into the Irish economy. We are now showing that we have skills gaps. I look forward to seeing many of my friends and their children coming back to work in Ireland. We have one of the fastest-growing economies in the EU. It has been quite difficult to reach this point. As I said earlier, many commentators said we would never reach it. They said unemployment would keep growing and we would face another bailout. Thankfully, we have proven those commentators wrong. I know Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland are actively trying to encourage some of our emigrants to come back and take up the well-paid jobs that are starting to appear in our economy.

Many Deputies raised issues relating to the impact of the age-related reform of the lone-parent family payment scheme. I reiterate the point made by the Tánaiste at the start of this debate that despite the strong welfare support given to lone parents over the years, the results have been disappointing in poverty terms, even when the economy was doing well. That is why these reforms are essential. They will address the passive nature of the scheme, which results in welfare dependency, while protecting the entitlement of lone parents with young children to jobseeker's allowance transitional arrangements. These reforms will also protect those who are caring by extending their one-parent family payment until their youngest child reaches the age of 16. They will incentivise lone parents to increase their employment by allowing them to access the family income supplement and the back to work family dividend. They will support those moving to jobseekers' payments by giving them activation support and access to education, training and employment programmes. The revised structure will help lone parents to return to work and build a better financial future for themselves and their families over time. I am committed to these reforms.

I would like to respond to Deputy O'Dea's comments about the reform of the one-parent family payment. I know there are those who argue that lone parents should be given the one-parent family payment until their children reach the age of 18, or for even longer. It is clear from the poverty rates that this approach adds to the welfare trap for lone parents. It is important to recognise that since the commencement of these reforms, a number of interventions have been introduced further to assist the support of lone parents. These include the introduction of jobseeker's allowance transition arrangements, which give lone parents with young children the flexibility to work part-time or engage in full-time education, enable them to access subsidised child care through after-school child care schemes and community employment child care programmes and allow them to access the back to work family dividend.

The Tánaiste announced yesterday that lone parents will be able to retain their entitlement to the one-parent family payment and will be able to receive a half-rate carer's allowance payment until their youngest child reaches the age of 16. These are significant supports. Unlike other jobseekers, people in receipt of jobseeker's allowance transition arrangements can also avail of full-time education. As such, these customers can receive the maintenance portion of the SUSI grant. This flexibility has been in place since the introduction of jobseeker's allowance transition arrangements in 2013. Recipients of one-parent family payment who are participating in training and education can also move back into educational allowance schemes when their entitlement to the one-parent family payment ceases. However, I am aware that this can result in a financial loss if these customers are currently in receipt of a SUSI grant. I think Deputy O'Dea highlighted this point in his contribution yesterday.

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