Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A range of important issues have been raised throughout the course of this debate, including the social welfare system for supporting families, the legal system and the Courts Service, and how they impact on family lives. We have heard about the people whom we are all here to help and to support.

The issue has been raised of creating some type of maintenance agency, but many countries have functioning maintenance systems without such an agency. It is the belief of the Minister and the Department that research is needed to see what form of maintenance provision would work best in our society.

The Private Members' motion fails to acknowledge the significant efforts made in recent years to enhance the position of families and children, including lone parents, across a range of Government initiatives, including social protection, childcare, health and education. The Minister has also outlined a broad range of measures provided for in budget 2020 to support families and children, including lone parents. These important changes have not been acknowledged in the motion, but I will refer to them now.

There will be a payment of a 100% Christmas bonus in December 2019 to recipients of a long-term social welfare payment, including the one-parent family payment. The Department will extend the hot school meals scheme from September 2020 to 35,000 additional schoolchildren. There is a €3 increase for qualified child dependants aged 12 and over and a €2 increase for qualified child dependants up to the age of 12 in all weekly payments. There will be an increase in the working family payment threshold by €10 per week for families with one, two or three children, benefiting 55,000 families, at a cost of €19 million from January 2020. There will be increases in the earnings disregard for working lone parents receiving the one-parent family payment or jobseeker's transition payment by €15 to €165 per week from January 2020, which will benefit almost 17,000 families.

Following the success of the roll-out of free GP care to children under six, from September it will expand to children under eight and to the provision of free dental care to children under six. There was an increase of €54 million in funding for early learning and childcare to support the continued provision of two years of the early childhood care and education, ECCE, scheme for all children. It is incorrect to say that nothing has been provided or there was no acknowledgement of the situation of lone parents, because that is simply not the case.

The motion also fails to acknowledge that the Government has put in place funding of €150,000 to undertake important research on child maintenance. The Minister is making arrangements to establish a judge-led group to progress that work, which is a priority for her. Finally, the motion fails to recognise that the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection has had close engagement with stakeholder groups on child maintenance and on the approach to the research being undertaken. This engagement will continue into the future to ensure that whatever system is implemented will be fit for purpose and based on the best available international practice.

On that basis, as stated, we will be abstaining from the vote on the motion although I assure the House that the Government will continue the work that has been undertaken in recent years to support lone parents.

That work has been recognised and welcomed by stakeholder groups representing children and families. Society needs to move away from an adversarial, confrontational approach to one based on family law, mediation and alternative dispute resolution, parenting co-ordination, co-operation and collaboration for the benefit of all parties involved. The Government is already doing this. I stress that the Minister is already consulting stakeholder groups. She has secured funding in this area for research. For these reasons, we will abstain on the motion.

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