Dáil debates
Thursday, 7 December 2023
Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions
Employment Support Services
11:00 am
Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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95. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the steps which she is taking to increase employment participation levels among those in receipt of one-parent family payments from her Department; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [53876/23]
Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The survey of income and living conditions for 2021 showed households headed by lone parents continued to be some of the hardest hit by deprivation and poverty. This is before the full impact of the cost-of-living crisis of the past two years is taken into account. Lone parents are struggling to meet the cost of living on a day-to-day basis for themselves and their children and we need to break that cycle of poverty.
Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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In addition to income supports, my Department provides a wide range of employment supports and services designed to assist lone parents to enter or return to employment. Both the one-parent family payment and the jobseeker’s transitional payment have been designed to support persons to pursue their individual employment goals. These schemes include an earnings disregard whereby the first €165 of weekly earnings is not assessed as part of the means test. In addition, 50% of earnings above €165 per week is disregarded in the means test. In April 2021, the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, removed the earnings threshold of €425 per week which was being applied to persons in receipt of the one-parent family payment. The working family payment supports more than 45,600 persons with children into employment. More than half of recipients are one-parent households. Budget 2024 saw the third successive increase to the payment’s income thresholds for all family sizes. As a result, the earnings thresholds for all family sizes have increased by more than €100 per week since budget 2022.
My Department is also running a pilot project, lone parents digital activation, in partnership with the NGO One Family. This pilot project is co-financed by the EU Programme for Employment and Social Innovation, EaSI, which is a European-level financial instrument managed by the European Commission.
This action aims at reaching out to those furthest away from the labour market by developing their employment and education and training capabilities and further enhancing their social inclusion. The Department of Social Protection is the lead partner and, in addition to One Family, there are three partners in Greece and one in Finland. The project commenced in November 2021, has a duration of 30 months, and will conclude at the end of April 2024. My Department will continue to develop the schemes and services available to support lone parents to enter or return to employment.
11:10 am
Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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We are in a perverse situation where we are in an economy at full employment and we need workers within our economy, especially in the whole digital area and yet, we have appallingly poor participation rates for one-parent families. We are rolling out high-speed broadband to every single home in the country, and as I said to the Minister of State previously, we need to look at how we can now utilise the digital hubs as people transition to high-speed broadband in their own homes. Surely there is now an opportunity there to match up the digital skills demand that is there across our economy with the digital hubs across the country to provide training, to engage with one-parent families and allow them to take up flexible employment that meets their childcare needs but also ensures that additional high-value income is coming into that house?
Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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I thank the Deputy for highlighting the issues and challenges that one-parent families face. I will give a broader picture of what we have been doing to date. In 2023, the employer relations division delivered 1,387 employment engagement activities, and almost 2,000 activities to support recruitment. Included in this were 610 events such as career fairs, employer roadshows, recruitment events and general information events. During these events, a full presentation of departmental services and programmes was made. These presentations included promotion of the various incentives available to employers to hire people in receipt of the one-parent family payment in order to increase awareness of the need to build opportunities and support for single-parent families in the labour force.
Seven specific events have been held this year, which focus on the one-parent family payment or the jobseeker's transitional payment. These include two events organised for International Women's Day. Some 984 invitations were issued to the virtual event, which focused on professional, scientific and technical activities. Recruitment events were organised with employers and organisations present. Communications issued to recipients of the payments regarding training courses and of these, 390 were placed on courses.
Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The difficulty with all of that, with all due respect, is that this is what we have been doing down through the decades, decade after decade. What I am suggesting to the Minister of State is that right across the economy at the moment, not just domestically but globally, there is a huge shortage of staff in the area of cybersecurity. This is an area of flexible employment. It can be done remotely at different times in the day and in different markets, be they here domestically, or across Europe, the Middle East or North America. It potentially provides flexible, high-value employment to one-parent families. This could bring additional high-value income into those homes. There is a whole cultural aspect of this with regard to the long-term impact this can have on society.
A similar project is operating in Norway with Microsoft, where migrant women are being engaged with. We need to look at where the niches are in the economy at the moment, where they can meet an upskilled workforce and specifically target one-parent families for those, taking a radical approach to this.
Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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The Deputy has mentioned a very specific sector there and I know Intreo services do look at skills shortages, try to match people with them and work with industry as well. We will take that point back to see if that is not already in the mix with regard to what Intreo is doing.
Figures provided by the CSO find that the employment rate for lone parents has increased from 64.8% in quarter 2 of 2019 to 67.1% in quarter 2 of 2023. There was a drop during the Covid-19 pandemic but we are back on the right trajectory.
Separate from this Department is a key improvement the Deputy will see helping the situation and giving people more options, and that is the investment in childcare by the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman. Childcare is a key issue with regard to allowing lone parents to access the labour market, and the significant investment of the last two years will, in time, also see greater participation rates in the employment markets in that regard.