Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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48. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if he will conduct a review into the changes introduced to the one-parent family payment in view of the findings of a report (details supplied) on lone parents and activation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35935/16]

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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There is widespread agreement that the new system for dealing with single parents is not working. We had a discussion on Committee Stage of the Social Welfare Bill. A number of parties from all sides of the House tabled amendments to require the Minister to conduct a review of this situation. I have tabled this parliamentary question to keep this matter to the forefront.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I discussed the reforms to the one parent-family payment with the select committee on Committee Stage of the Social Welfare Bill last week, as the Deputy mentioned.

We are still at an early stage of the implementation of the reforms to the one-parent family payment. It will take several years before the full impact of the reforms can be assessed. This is because many lone parents, on foot of the changes, are taking up education, training or employment-support programmes, which will take time for them to complete and move into the workforce.

However, I listened carefully to the issues raised by the Deputy and other members of the select committee as part of last week's debate. I agreed that I would commission a report on the changes to the one-parent family payment. I will be introducing an amendment on Report Stage this week to that effect, writing it into the legislation as Deputies requested. The report will examine the financial and societal effects of the changes taking into account poverty rates and welfare dependency of those impacted by the reforms.

Dr. Millar's report is on activation measures for lone parents and does not purport to be an analysis of the lone parent reforms.

Given the title, it was my Department's expectation that the report would provide detail on the design of specific activation programmes that would help lone parents and also help us to develop further activation measures for these customers. That the report does not include such information is a lost opportunity.

The research commenced in January 2015 and, therefore, takes no account of the final phase of the one-parent family payment reforms in July 2015, or improvements targeted at lone parents in the 2016 budget, which resulted in lone parents benefitting more favourably than the average household.

The research commenced in January 2015 and therefore takes no account of the final phase of the one-parent family payment reforms in July 2015, or improvements targeted at lone parents in the 2016 budget which resulted in lone parents benefitting more favourably than the average household. Budget 2017 also includes a number of measures that result in further gains for lone parents, including an increase in the weekly payment, more incentives to enter education and the ability to retain more income that is earned.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister has been critical of the Millar report but is he aware of the concrete suggestions put forward by Dr. Millar to alleviate some of the problems that arise from the changed system? What does the Minister think of those proposals? They appear to be eminently sensible to me. Is the Minister concerned that the organisations representing single parents have advised large swathes of lone parents who are currently in the workforce that when the back to work family dividend comes to an end later this year - it is a two year scheme with 100% in one year and 50% in the second year - they should sign off the family income supplement and sign back on to the jobseeker's transition payment. This means they would go from a work related benefit back to a jobseeker's payment. Does that not indicate that the reforms are achieving the opposite to what was intended with regard to activation?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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We will have to see what people do. The back to work family dividend ended in July for some people and we have not seen a significant increase in people going from FIS to jobseeker's transition. I believe it was ended in July for some people but maybe it was a reduction rather than people losing the payment altogether. The back to work family dividend becomes tapered down at different points. We know that some 3,000 people have moved from one parent family payments to FIS, which is moving in the right direction. There has been much commentary on this and I will give one small example of some of the changes that have occurred in the last two years, on foot of the measures contained in budgets 2016 and 2017. A lone parent on the jobseeker's transition payment who works 15 hours at the national minimum wage will see an increase in their overall income of €16 per week, from approximately €334 in 2016 to €350 in 2017. Since 2015 this lone parent has seen an increase of almost €44 per week, or €2,300 per annum, between take home pay and State support. Inevitably the focus is going to be on people who have lost income but it is important to bear in mind that many people are much where they were and actually a substantial number are better off.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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Maybe it is just me, but all the people who come to see me are complaining that they have lost income. Nobody is coming to me saying they have actually increased their income. I suspect that if one looks at the figures we will find that many of the lone parents who manage to increase their income did so because they took up more employment. There are many lone parents who are not in a position to take up more employment simply because they either cannot get it or they cannot do it because of their child rearing responsibilities. We look forward to the report the Minister is commissioning. Will he indicate when it will be available within the Department?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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It is not just the Deputy. This goes back to my theme that when any reform or change produces winners or losers, it is of course those people who lose out who will come to Deputies' offices - for all the obvious reasons - and not those who have benefitted or who are better off. That is inevitable when one makes any reform.

We are working on the amendment for Report Stage of the Social Welfare Bill 2016. It is going to be an independent report, not done in-house by my Department, so it will have to go through the tender process. We will put the timelines into the Report Stage amendment. Ideally we would like to have it done before June 2017 so that it can inform decisions made for the next budget. I do not have exact timelines but that is the intention. The only thing that might go against us in that regard is that if it is going to be an independent report it has to be externally sourced and we must go through a public tender system for that.