Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputies Butler and Rabbitte. The Minister of State recognised in his speech that poverty among this cohort is endemic. All the statistics point to that. Research done by St. Vincent de Paul and the figures in the survey on income and living conditions in Ireland, SILC, illustrate that a lone-parent family is five times more likely to be living in consistent poverty than a family headed by two parents. The levels of deprivation for lone parents are now running at over 45%. Almost one in two lone parents cannot afford the basic necessities for the very minimum standard of living. That is a disgraceful statistic.

There are a number of reasons this has turned out to be the case. On the so-called reforms of 2012 to which the Minister of State referred, introduced by the former Minister, Deputy Burton, we warned the Minister at the time and subsequent Ministers that they would have a devastating effect on the income of lone parents and this has proved to be the case. This effect manifests itself right to this very day. I refer to a number of reports, such as the 2016 report by Millar and Crosse, which was extremely critical of the impact of those so-called reforms. The Indecon report of 2017 was a damning indictment. The St. Vincent de Paul study published last March showed that the level of in-work poverty among lone parents had doubled since the introduction of the so-called reforms of 2012. The response of the Minister and subsequent Ministers has been to try to alleviate the impact of those changes by adding little provisions here and there, adding extra pieces of a patchwork onto what is already a gigantic patchwork, thereby making the social welfare system even more complicated. This is their approach rather than simply reversing what was done in 2012 because it was so clearly wrong. The result of all this is that the whole system of social welfare law concerning lone parents is now riddled with anomalies.

Another reason for the increase in poverty and the pitiable status of lone parents lies in the fact that a relatively small percentage of Irish lone parents, compared with those in other countries, actually get maintenance. The reason for that, as has already been outlined, is that it is a condition that someone who is married or in civil partnership will not get lone parents allowance until he or she seeks maintenance from the other party. If people are living in a non-marital, non-civil partnership relationship, they can get lone parent's allowance but in order to hold on to it they have to apply for maintenance subsequently. The only way a single parent can apply for maintenance in this country is through the courts system. In most of these cases when the relationship has broken up, it is usually the woman who is living in abject poverty. She has to face the adversarial system of the courts. The vast majority of lone parents I deal with do not have the resources to employ private solicitors so they have to depend on the free legal aid system, which is not completely free. The Minister herself has acknowledged on a number of occasions that this places an enormous emotional and financial burden on people who are already suffering enough and already have enough on their plate. That is the simple reality.

There should never be a system in which lone parent's allowance depends on chasing a partner for maintenance through the Irish courts system. I know single mothers who have been in and out of the District Court ten, 12 or 15 times because some of those people against whom orders are made are very adept at avoiding payment. There is this constant carousel of people in and out of court, all at the expense of the legal aid system. From that point of view, something along the lines of what is proposed here would be self-financing. In fact, the State would finish up better off, judging by the impact and the burden on the civil legal aid system of the present arrangements. I have also come across cases where a woman has had to flee the family home because of violence. The last thing that individual wants to do is bring herself to the attention of her violent partner and give him her address by lodging a summons for maintenance. It is insupportable. There is also a daft provision in the social welfare legislation that if the court orders maintenance for a person, whether he or she gets it or not, it is counted as part of his or her means. That is insupportable.

I would not agree with many of the things that have been done in Northern Ireland but one thing they have done right is establishing a statutory agency to which lone parents can present themselves and the agency will seek the maintenance on their behalf. That relieves the emotional and financial burden on the lone parent enormously. It has been proved to be very effective. In any jurisdiction where there is a similar arrangement, we will find that the level of maintenance paid rises dramatically. Surely that should be our aim to combat poverty among one of the poorest groups in society. There is also a very interesting report done by the Gingerbread group in the United Kingdom. It was a very extensive study which found that if people are involved in paying maintenance for their child, however that comes about, whether by direct court case or through an agency, they tend to take a greater interest in the upbringing of the child and that is to the child's benefit.

I know the Minister of State is not opposing the motion and he has mentioned various figures for research and so on. However, this is very urgently needed. If the Minister, Deputy Regina Doherty, was to establish such an agency here it would be a very significant legacy of her period as Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection. She would want to get on with it because we have been speaking about this for the last four or five years and time is running out rapidly for the Minister and the Minister of State.

I call on the Minister of State when responding to be clearer rather than making vague assertions about thousands of euro being allocated to research here and there and saying we are talking to somebody else. How far are we from establishing something like this? I take from the fact the Government is not opposing this motion that it is in favour of creating such an agency. Let us have a little more concrete information as to when it will happen.

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