Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy has outlined all the supports we have been giving to lone parents. Significant support has been provided during the pandemic to customers on the one-parent family payment who lost their employment. They have been allowed to keep their primary payment and to claim the PUP concurrently. It is important to say that. That is of help to lone parents. Their representatives have highlighted the importance of the school meals, which have continued during the pandemic, including during the summer and the school holidays. They also continue during the winter holidays, over Christmas. We have funded schools to enable them to give the school meals to children. My Department has also put in place very flexible arrangements to restore payment rates for lone parents where maintenance payments have stopped. We have increased the qualified child allowance in the budget to €38 for children under 12 and to €45 for children over 12, and the one-parent family payment earnings threshold of €425 will be removed from April 2021. In answer to the Deputy's questions, we continually review the situation and we certainly take on board the findings and the reports we do on this issue. The ESRI has compiled a study and we are certainly looking at all the issues raised in it.

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