Rónán Mullen (Independent)

I welcome Senator O'Toole's contribution, which raises an interesting issue, and I am also interested in hearing the Minister's response.

The Government's renewed focus in this Bill on removing poverty traps and raising the income levels at which recipients of the lone parent allowance can receive benefits is welcome. In order to tackle poverty, it is vital that the social welfare system removes disincentives to entering the workforce, so raising the income limit from €400 to €425 is a step in the right direction.

The House may remember that in February 2006, the then Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Brennan, made a number of proposals in respect of the lone parent allowance. Among these was an initiative to remove the infamous cohabitation rule, which discouraged lone parents from living with another person. Such a disincentive means that the lone parent of a child is penalised for living with the other parent of the child. Discouraging the two parents of a child from living together can hardly be good social policy. I am on the record in this House as saying that children have better outcomes when raised within a family based on a traditional marriage, an assertion backed by the best social science research over 25 years in the US and UK. This is not a slur on the thousands of other families, including single parent families, many of whom do a heroic job raising children in difficult circumstances. I simply aim to repeat what the evidence tells us. That said, even an arrangement in which the mother and father of a child live together unmarried, where both are in receipt of the lone parent allowance, is better than the situation that still exists, where the presence of the extra parent, usually the father, is actually penalised.

Barnardos, the children's charity, for the past five years has been running an initiative called "the Da project", which engages with the fathers of children who attend their centre in Cherry Orchard, encouraging them to become more involved in their children's lives. At the launch of the evaluation of the project last year, Fergus Finlay, the chief executive of Barnardos, stated that:

Recent research shows that greater engagement of fathers in the care and rearing of their children, particularly in the early and pre-teenage years, can result in many social, educational and psychological benefits for children. These range from better social skills, fewer emotional and behavioural difficulties in adolescence, better school performance and less chance of getting into trouble with the law.

Recent research from Sweden confirms this; children do better on a range of measures when their father is around.

Yet two years after the then Minister, Deputy Brennan, announced plans to make the relevant changes to the social welfare code, the cohabitation rule depriving lone parents who live with another remains in place. I understand that there are some details of the plans proposed by the former Minister which are opposed by lone parent groups, including the proposal that, were the two people in receipt of the proposed new benefit to live together, they would receive not a full payment each but a combined payment which would be the equivalent of 20% of the full amount.

I also appreciate that, in these matters, the devil is very much in the details. Nonetheless, I would ask the Minister to address this issue as a matter of urgency. The philosophy behind the proposed change is positive and we should not let technical details prevent its implementation.

Last week, it was reported that the National Economic and Social Council proposed a measure to tax child credit for wealthier parents and to put a tax on the child benefit of every third and subsequent child. It made this proposal on the basis that it believes the current child benefit system is "hugely inefficient" at tackling poverty, because the same payment is given for every child. That may be the case but the fact that the same amount is allocated to each and every child might suggest that the sole or even main purpose of the benefit is not to tackle poverty, but to assist parents with children, and remove any possibility of discouraging parents from having children.

Quite apart from the unedifying spectacle of the Government discouraging parents from having more than two children, the policy rationale behind taxing the child benefit on each third and subsequent child is, to my mind at least, very cloudy. Ireland faces the prospect of an aging population. The Pensions Board reckon that we have 20 years to prepare for a situation when the percentage of people at retirement age will rise from 10% to 20%. This has serious implications for our current pensions system.

In such a scenario, it hardly makes sense for the Government to encourage parents to have fewer children. I need not dwell on the social realities which already act as burdens on working families; child care costs, long commutes, high mortgages and a tax individualisation system which almost mandates both parents to enter the workplace. I hope the Government does not add to this already bad situation by taking up the NESC's policy proposal in this particular area.