Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin members for tabling this Private Members' motion. It is never easy to introduce reform or to change a system that has been in place for a long time. However, from the outset, the Government and the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, have been committed to reforming the social welfare system. The Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, introduced phased reforms to the one-parent family payment scheme in the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2012, in order to reduce long-term social welfare dependency. To give credit where credit is due, she is probably one of the few Ministers to have the guts to implement some of the reforms. This is about breaking a cycle of dependency on welfare and giving people opportunities to move into employment or further training and education.

Despite significant levels of investment, including an estimated €607 million in 2015 for almost 70,000 recipients, the one-parent family payment scheme has not been successful in preventing lone parents from being significantly more at risk of consistent poverty than the population as a whole. After many years of pouring billions of euro into a system, we still see that children who are in families where nobody works are at highest risk of consistent poverty. A 2008 survey showed that one of the main barriers to employment for lone parents was that a job would not be financially worth their while. The latest CSO figures indicate that two thirds of lone parents live in poverty. The Government is working hard to make work pay and I firmly believe that the best route out of poverty and social exclusion is through paid employment. Research shows that being at work reduces the at-risk-of-poverty rate for lone parents by 75%, compared to those who do not work. Providing people with the skills to find employment can help them to improve their family situation and also the situation of their extended family. Some people have expressed concerns about the availability of jobs. I agree with them that there are still many people who need to be back at work.

Since taking office, this Government has helped to create 100,000 jobs across the board. There are also opportunities available on community employment schemes through SOLAS. Last week, 800 vacancies were available around the country as well as more than 98,000 places on training schemes and courses in our local colleges.

Returning to education and training can provide parents with new opportunities to re-train and gain the necessary skills to enter the workforce, which may not have been possible in the past when they were rearing young children. In my experience, returning to education brings renewed self-esteem, opens up doors and can offer a new beginning to many young people. The primary aim is to support lone parents who wish to take up these opportunities. That is why the Department is allowing lone parents who are already on an education course and in receipt of the SUSI grant, to keep their one-parent family payment and the SUSI maintenance grant until they finish their course. We need to keep these courses going and to support maintenance grants for lone parents. Since the reform of the one-parent family payment began, approximately 11,000 recipients have moved to alternative income support payments including the jobseeker's transition payment, the back to work family dividend and family income supplement.

The jobseeker's transition payment supports lone parents with children over the age of seven and until their 14th birthday. Under this scheme they do not have to be available and genuinely seeking work but they do have to engage with their local Intreo office and avail of the support of a case officer. No lone parent with a child under the age of 14 years is required to take up employment in order to receive income support from the State.

The back to work family dividend allows lone parents to retain the child proportion of their social welfare payment. From this week, 30,000 lone parents will move onto these new schemes and 20,000 of those will see no change in their income or they will gain from between €10 and €150 per week. From the remaining 10,000, approximately 6,000 will have an immediate incentive to increase their number of hours worked to 19 in order to claim family income supplement and the back to work family dividend. These people will be financially better off. Even after the reform, a lone parent whose youngest child is aged seven or over, working 19 hours at the national minimum wage, receives more support from the Department of Social Protection than an equivalent lone parent who is not working. They receive €235 per week free from the Department in the form of FIS and the back to work family dividend, in addition to their wages of €165, thus bringing their total income to almost €400 per week. This compares to an equivalent lone parent with no work who receives €218 per week from the Department. It is very important that we continue to encourage people - lone parents in particular - to return to the workforce.

Many people have raised with me the question of supports, maintenance and fathers. I ask the Minister of State if we can find a way of dealing with maintenance payments by fathers to lone parents. Many young women are rearing children with no maintenance being provided by the fathers of their children.

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