John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this debate on a comprehensive piece of work carried out by the committee. I thank the Chair of the committee for facilitating and allowing comprehensive analysis and detailed questioning of all our expert witnesses, and more importantly, real life witnesses. They are out there dealing with the consequences of the failure of successive Governments to tackle one of the most deprived sectors of our society. I say that with reference to the changes made in 2012 and the consequences those changes have had on lone parent families right across the State. I also say that in the full knowledge of the impact of changes that the Labour Party and Fine Gael implemented in government.

It is one of the problems lone-parent families are facing. It is unfortunate that Labour is not here to try to bring forward the solutions to help lone-parent families and address the difficulties they are facing.

While the report the committee published is comprehensive, it does not contain any new information. The report provides a snapshot of the reality of life for lone parents and their children. There is now so much evidence about the difficulties facing lone parents and their children that it is difficult to comprehend the Government's indifference to the issues involved. Government action is certainly not reflective of the wealth of evidence we have in respect of lone parents and their children. Aside from the report before the House, we also have the Millar and Crosse report. The latter tells us that, as a result of changes made by Fine Gael and the Labour Party to the one-parent family payment, some lone parents are actually better off on social welfare than at work. We have the Indecon report which tells us that the majority of lone parents surveyed experienced greater levels of deprivation after the changes to the one-parent family payment than was the case before their implementation. We also have the survey on income and living conditions, SILC, report for 2016. This tells us that there was a 4% increase in the number of lone-parent families living at risk of poverty in just one year. When the report was published, the overall figure in this regard was 40%. We have also had the ESRI report which tells us that, of 11 EU countries, Ireland has the highest persistent deprivation rate among lone parents. There is a significant gap in deprivation rates for lone parents compared with other adults in this State.

What more evidence do the Minister or Government need in order to take the steps to assist and support lone parents and their children? How much longer is the Government going to continue to neglect them? We need targeted measures across all Departments if we are to improve the lives of lone parents and their children. We need to make it easier for lone parents to upskill, train and to return to education if they so wish. Their doing the latter is not only beneficial for lone parents, it is also beneficial for their children. Research shows that, the better educated a parent is, the better the educational outcome for his or her child. Education can play a key role in opening doors for lone parents, in finding them sustainable employment, in helping to lift them out of consistent poverty and in moving them away from a position of being at risk of poverty. Relaxing the rules relating to the back to education allowance is just one way in which we could assist lone parents to return to education.

We need to ensure that lone parents and their children are not left struggling to afford ever-increasing rents, particularly as most lone-parent families are in private rented accommodation. Other lone-parent families live in hotel rooms and indeed bed-and-breakfast accommodation across the State. We know from the homeless figures that the majority of homeless families are lone-parent families. The Government could have ensured that lone-parent families did not suffer ever-increasing rents by introducing rent certainty. Unfortunately, however, it was assisted by Fianna Fáil in rejecting Sinn Féin's calls for rent certainty on six separate occasions.

In the area of social protection, we need to tackle poverty among lone-parent families. This must be a priority for the Minister. We can do this through targeted increases in payments that would specifically benefit the children of lone-parent families. This can be done through increases in qualified child payment as opposed to universal increases in child benefit. Qualified child payment increases could be targeted further by aiming them at families with teenage children in recognition of the fact that it is more expensive to raise teenagers than it is younger children. We could allow lone parents to remain on jobseeker's transitional payment until their youngest child is 18 rather than 14. This Administration needs to look at assisting lone parents and their children by means of a whole-of-Government approach. I have just outlined some of the ways in which this could be done but there are many others.

One cannot talk about lone parents and the issues they face without mentioning child maintenance. I welcome the fact that the Minister mentioned this in her contribution. Evidence has shown that child maintenance payments can play a role in reducing child poverty. That is not a myth, it is a fact. I have put this idea to the Minister for Justice and Equality on more than one occasion. It is achievable and would make a real, telling difference for lone parents. Last month, I put forward Sinn Féin's proposals regarding the establishment of a child maintenance service, which is recommended in the cross-party committee report and which has been recommended by the United Nations. The latter criticised the failure of the State to have such a service in place. These proposals are supported by the lone-parent organisations, One Family and SPARK, the National Women's Council of Ireland and Women's Aid. Sinn Féin's proposals are based on a successful model in place in the North. The proposed child maintenance service would be available for lone parents to use, to seek basic advice and guidance, to assist in calculating maintenance amounts and to actually collect maintenance and transfer it to such parents. This would be a free service available to all lone parents if and when they need it.

Revenue will play a key role in the calculation of means of non-custodial parents for child maintenance payments. There would be special protocols in place for lone parents who have suffered domestic violence. They would be protected from ever having to come into contact with ex-partners. Their applications would be fast-tracked and they would not be expected to provide information, such as addresses, for ex-partners at any stage as is currently the case unfortunately. The only way to seek child maintenance at the moment is through the courts. According to lone parents, this process is degrading, it causes tensions and it simply does not work. I have met many lone parents who have had to go to court up to 14 times to seek maintenance and who, unfortunately, still have not received it. A court is no place to deal with child maintenance arrangements. If one looks at this process from the court's perspective, one realises that it takes up court time and resources unnecessarily, and gives rise to costs. It is possible that the initial cost of setting up a child maintenance service would be neutral, particularly when the cost relating to the courts is taken into account.

The Government should stop categorising child maintenance as household means in the context rent supplement and other social welfare payments. Child maintenance is not a household income. We have a long way to go to create an environment where lone parents and their children are assisted and supported. The committee's report should not be left to sit on a shelf. The report highlights the issues right across the board - from education to social protection, from child care to employment and from housing to health - that require Government attention.

If new politics is to achieve anything, then let us commit ourselves now to making life a little bit easier for the 218,817 lone-parent families across the State. Successive Governments have done them wrong and it is time to do the right thing for them and their families.

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