Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I too welcome this motion and commend the Social Democrats on bringing it forward. Before we ever heard of Covid-19 the Government was telling us about low unemployment, plenty of jobs and Ireland being the fastest growing economy in the EU but what good is any of that when we have children going hungry, are cold in their own homes and some who are without any home living in bed and breakfast accommodation and homeless accommodation across the State? It is a rich economy but a very poor society. That is the reality for more than 90,000 children who live in consistent poverty every single day. Those children have been robbed of their childhood. That carefree nature, the fun and the make-believe has been replaced with worry, uncertainty, and in some cases fear.

The Minister's amendment welcomes increases in the earnings disregard for the one parent family payment. We remember that was done after it had been previously cut and the age reduced to seven. Indecon reported on the impact of those very changes on lone parent families, which were made by Fine Gael and the Labour Party. We secured in the Social Welfare Act in 2016 an independent Indecon report to examine those changes. That reported concluded very clearly that all evidence indicated that it was those very changes that made life more difficult for lone parent families. That policy was introduced without any regard for the consequences and for lone parent families the consequences of those changes were detrimental.

The Minister welcomes a maintenance disregard for the working family payment. That is a payment that is badly needed but why is it needed? It is needed to top up poor wages and again shows the prevalence of low pay in this State. Last year, almost €400 million was spent by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection on the working family payment. It shows that because a job no longer guarantees a route out of poverty. We know that more than 100,000 people at work are living in poverty so that guarantee of employment no longer exists.

We know that deprivation levels have increased. The Central Statistics Office, CSO, report on enforced deprivation published earlier this month showed an increase of 45.4% to lone parent families and one in five children experiences deprivation every day.

When it comes to child maintenance, and the Minister referred to the maintenance disregard, that is a payment that is taken into account as household means for all social welfare payments. That should never be the case. Child maintenance, if it is actually paid, should be seen as income for the child to help raise that child, not as a household income. That must change. I welcome the disregard but it should be available for all social welfare payments.

We are blue in the face saying that we need a child maintenance service in this State, similar to what is in place in the North. In the past three years, we twice published proposals on how we can get that service in these Twenty-six Counties and have consistently raised that issue. Last year, we had a motion passed in this House that for the establishment of that child maintenance service, and I welcome that it is committed to in the programme. I am aware that work is under way but that needs to happen very quickly because if someone is seen to be in receipt of child maintenance it reduces their other social welfare payments, regardless of whether they are receiving it. They might not be getting the child maintenance payment but it cuts their other payments. That cannot continue and it should never be the case.

The other issue in that regard is the liable relative unit in the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, which is dysfunctional. Its objective is to go after the liable relative, who is the non-custodial parent, to recoup money to pay for the one parent family payment. It is to recoup costs for the State as opposed to costs for that child or children, or that family. That is very disturbing. When we looked at this previously between January 2018 and August 2019, that unit examined more than 18,000 cases and in just over 2,000 of them a non-custodial parent began making payments. Of the almost 16,000 cases, nothing happened; they were simply left. That child maintenance is needed urgently.

The motion also makes reference to the roadmap on social inclusion, which is welcome, but it was two years late. We had been calling for it in those two years. That fails to mention benchmarking social welfare payments to adequacy, which was highlighted by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Social Justice Ireland and the Anti-Poverty Network, which has stated that benchmarking to adequacy is not in this social inclusion model. Social Justice Ireland went as far as to say that when this social inclusion roadmap is finished, there will be no change in poverty rates. That in itself is very stark. We have raised this issue. We published legislation for a social welfare commission to do two things. It should make sure that households were lifted out of poverty and that their social welfare support met a basic need for that household, whether it was rural or urban. That takes out the shameful political football that we have every year as the budget approaches in terms of €5 for this group but no €5 for that group, which is based on nothing. We need to see an end to that because poverty in this State is an ongoing crisis but we can take three simple steps very quickly. We need to establish a child maintenance service for those lone parents who are struggling; we need adequate social welfare supports; and we need a living wage to ensure that work actually pays.

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