Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I extend my congratulations to the new Clerk of the Dáil, Mr. Peter Finnegan, and wish him well in the job.

In budget 2016, I introduced a number of measures that benefit lone parents. These include a 75% Christmas bonus, which equates to a payment of just over €163 for a lone parent with one child. Lone parents will benefit from the €5 increase in the monthly rate of child benefit and those in receipt of the family income supplement will also benefit from the increases to the thresholds for that scheme. Lone parents in receipt of fuel allowance gain an increase of €2.50 per week during the fuel season.

Lone parents on the jobseeker’s transitional payment also gained an increase in overall income from the closer alignment of this means test with the more generous one-parent family payment means test. An extra €3 million is also being provided for the school meals scheme. It is important to highlight that the social impact assessment of budget 2016 showed that budgetary policy would increase average household incomes for working lone parents by 2%. Non-earning lone parents also fared above average, gaining 1.8%.

The most recent survey on income and living conditions relates to 2014 and is based on income data from 2013 and 2014. In 2004, during the economic boom, lone parents were over four and a half times more at risk of poverty than the rest of the population. In 2014, they were two and a half times more at risk of poverty than the rest of the population.

Research shows that being at work reduces the at-risk-of-poverty rate for lone parents by three quarters, compared to lone parents not at work, highlighting that the best way to tackle poverty among lone parents is to assist them into employment. Access to the Department’s Intreo service is critical to achieve this outcome. Any reversal of these reforms would delay access to this essential service and would be a backward step in terms of tackling poverty among lone parents. The positive outcome of the reforms can be seen in the increase in the number of lone parents becoming new family income supplement recipients. Of the lone parents affected by the reforms in July 2015, more than 3,000 became new family income supplement recipients by the end of 2015.

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