Nicky McFadden (Fine Gael)

I wish the Minister well in his new portfolio. This is the first occasion on which I have dealt with him face to face since he moved to his new Department. I thank him for the revisions he made in respect of farm women. In making these revisions he displayed both compassion and insight.

The Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2010 introduces reduced rates of jobseeker's benefit, jobseeker's allowance and supplementary welfare allowance which will apply to claimants who refuse to participate in appropriate courses of training under the national employment action plan. The Bill also provides for a reduction in the qualifying age for receipt of one-parent family payments.

Section 18 provides that the rate of jobseeker's benefit will be reduced in certain circumstances. In such circumstances is it fair and legal that the payments made people who have worked for 20 to 25 years and made social welfare contributions during that period can be reduced? Do the individuals concerned not have an expectation that they will receive their full entitlements? Will people be offered courses that could prove to be unsuitable in the context of their qualifications and interests? Forfás recently published a report on the appropriateness and availability of the courses on offer. Does the Minister accept that FÁS courses must be radically changed to cater for the many talented individuals who are unemployed?

Over 450,000 people are unemployed, but the Department only employs 63 facilitators who are responsible for the activation of over 90,000 one-parent families and over 100,000 people in receipt of disability and illness payments. They are involved in various activation measures, including those provided for in the Bill. As the Minister rightly said, work rather than income support is the best route out of poverty. However, the lack of appropriate courses and facilitators does not inspire me with confidence in the Minister's activation measures.

Under sections 18, 19 and 20 of the Bill, it is proposed to reduce the rates of jobseeker's allowance, jobseeker's benefit and supplementary welfare allowance paid to those who have "without good cause refused to participate or to agree to participate in a course of training which is considered appropriate". As I have said, Fine Gael believes in activation. Research has proved that there is a strong rationale for introducing activation policies which combine positive and negative incentives. A report prepared by Dr. Anne Daguerre and Dr. David Etherington in 2009 found evidence that the most effective activation measures relied on elements of incentive and compulsion - the carrot and the stick. If a person refuses to participate in a course of training, his or her payment will be cut by €46 if he or she is over the age of 24 years. Those between the ages of 22 and 24 years will see their payments cut by €25. The Minister should clearly outline what he means by an "appropriate" training course. There are no data available to support his activation measures. I do not know what courses he is talking about. Nothing has been documented anywhere I have looked to outline the new courses and ways about which we are talking as we try to support those who are unemployed. In the absence of proper investment in the provision of suitable training places, this proposal is nothing but a crude cost-saving measure that will force claimants to depend on social welfare for a longer time.

Some stakeholders have expressed concern about the impact the Bill will have on certain groups, especially lone parents. Ms Candy Murphy, a policy and research manager with One Family, has argued that the reduced payments will make it increasingly difficult for lone parents to access employment and training. The new proposals, when taken with the other reductions in welfare rates and the loss of the early childcare supplement announced in budget 2010, will make bigger the already insurmountable poverty traps encountered by lone parents. The Minister rightly referred to such traps. The head of the social and justice policy division of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul has also highlighted the combined effect of the cuts outlined in the budget. Measures such as the cancellation of the Christmas bonus, the cuts in rent supplement and the increases in local authority charges will all have an effect on vulnerable groups. As the Minister said, the children of lone parents are at the highest risk of living in consistent poverty.

It has been brought to my attention that some people are no longer entitled to both the back to education allowance and the maintenance grant. I am concerned about how such persons will be able to survive. I understand a person has to sign on for nine months before he or she is entitled to receive the back to education grant. Will the Minister comment on this? I am also aware that the back to education grant is paid on a once-off basis only. It cannot be used for more than one course. Many young highly educated graduates are in need of activation. They need to be able to undertake further courses, but if they do so, they will not qualify for the back to education allowance. One cannot attend an educational course while in receipt of jobseeker's allowance because one needs to be available for work.

As I said, one-parent families are more at risk of living in poverty than any other household. CSO figures for 2009 show that one third of one-parent families are "at risk of poverty", which means they are living on less than 60% of average income. One fifth of one-parent families are on such low incomes that they are unable to afford basic necessities such as food, clothing, school materials and household goods. In this day and age families should not have to go without such necessities. The greatest challenge faced by the head of a one-parent family is in trying to get back into the workforce. The availability of child care services, a serious issue, hinders this process The reality is that there are very few affordable child care services available. The Minister has mentioned that single parents in Sweden, Germany and Norway are obliged to go back to work when their child reaches the age of three years. I remind him that the best child care services in the world are provided in such countries for free. I ask him to respond to this point. The lack of child care facilities in this country acts as a disincentive for lone parents to go back to work. It is a damning indictment of the Government that lone parents who are willing to go back to work cannot do so because they cannot afford child care. It is no wonder that lone parents comprise 90% of social welfare claimants. This is all due to the inept and ill-conceived policy decisions of the Government. Professor Dan Finn and Ms Rosie Gloster have argued that one of the most significant barriers facing lone parents in many countries is the lack of viable child care options.

Matters are complicated by school hours. We all know that FÁS courses start at 8.30 a.m. each day. I wonder if the Minister can comment on this.

OECD calculations take into account that, in contrast to couples, lone parents have to rely on one wage to cover their child care costs. Where is the incentive to go back to work? If a mother goes back to work and finds that her child care costs are almost as much as the weekly wage she earns, how can the Government justify her decision to go back to work? It believes she will be able to do so when her child reaches the age of 14 years. The problem is that the practicalities of this approach have not been thought through. What should a mother do until her child reaches that age? Should she idly remain on social welfare in the hope she will be able to get a job on her child's 14th birthday because she cannot afford to return to work before the child reaches that age? When the child reaches 14 years, will she have to compete with newly qualified graduates?

The system, as it stands, gives lone parents no incentive to enter the workforce. I emphasise that the majority of the heads of one-parent families want to work. They are willing to contribute to society and pay their own way. They are hard workers who want to provide adequately and comfortably for their children and give them educational opportunities and career prospects. They sometimes require the assistance of the State to help them find their feet. We all accept that this assistance, in general, does not last forever. Those lone parents able to obtain and secure relatively well paid jobs do not seek to rely on the State or the one-parent family payment. However, it is the duty of the State to activate such persons in the workforce and provide a standard of living that does not see them lve in consistent poverty. Section 25 of the Bill aims to end the entitlement to one-parent family payment when the youngest child reaches the age of 14 years. This will not assist certain families to get out of poverty traps. The transitional arrangements that will be in place until 2016, mentioned by the Minister, do not take into account the practical details of child care and transport which I have mentioned. When a child reaches the age of 14 years, his or her lone parent will no longer receive this payment. Such a parent will be expected to join the workforce with graduates and young professionals.

The lack of consultation between the Minister and the bodies responsible for highlighting lone parent issues which would like to contribute to the debate on the Bill is a sad indictment of the approach being adopted. The director of OPEN, Ms Frances Byrne, has said some of the activation proposals can and possibly will stigmatise certain sections of the population.

She states there is an unfortunate underlying assumption that the current social welfare system acts as an incentive for the formation of one-parent families. That assumption is wholly unacceptable and is a fallacy. In practice, most one-parent family claims last for much less than the 22 years of a child's full-time education, while 30% of claims last no longer than three years, 20% last for between four and five years, 25% between six and eight years and only 15% for longer than ten years. This shows the efforts one-parent families are willing to make to stay in the workforce. The Department estimated that more than 60% of one-parent families are working.

In 2009 the fraud savings target was €616 million but, sadly, was not met and only €484 million was achieved. At a time when the Exchequer is under so much pressure, the Government should increase that target and seek to exceed it. Instead, it goes softly on people who are robbing the State and hits one-parent families, disabled people, carers and blind people. Social welfare fraud is estimated to cost €2 billion.

I find it laughable that the Minister plans to introduce a system whereby claimants of social welfare might sign on by text message. Last year a spot check found that up to 10% of dole claims were fraudulent, with most of those claims made by or in the name of people living outside Ireland. At that time, the former Minister, Deputy Hanafin, introduced photo ID, a long overdue measure. The only way in which a person can prove he or she is the person as claimed is by such ID.

As Oireachtas Members, it is our challenge to devise legislation that acknowledges the diversity of women's lives and working patterns while at the same time recognising a woman's right to work in paid employment and that she should be able to make choices regarding parenting and child care. We must seek to empower society rather than an economy.