Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Very significant numbers of people will benefit by between €50 and €150 a week in additional earnings. That might not sound like a lot of money to people in here on a TD's salary, but for a family it is a very significant amount. As with the housing protocol, this policy has been ongoing in the Department for the past three years and already in the past two years 19,000 families have transited. It is a one-on-one interaction and if any of those families also have housing issues they can meet the community welfare service at the same time as the employment officer. It was the case in the past that when an individual went on lone parent benefit the expectation was often that he or she might stay on it for 20 to 30 years. What we want to do now is to offer a service to the families who have been coming in to see us. The outcomes have been extremely positive and perhaps when time permits we will arrange for some of the Deputies who are interested to actually visit and see the system in the social welfare offices, where people are involved in really positive engagements about how to provide a better future for themselves and for their children.

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