Aideen Hayden (Labour)

I also welcome the Minister to the House. We appreciate the difficulty she has with the current budget and the efforts she has made to be as fair as she can possibly be. She has also very eloquently highlighted that we need to change the social welfare system. We have a social welfare system, which like the layers of the onion has come upon us over a number of decades and is no longer fit for purpose. The cumulative effect of the changes introduced in the budget show the need for change and also show the need to be careful in how we implement change.

A number of other speakers talked about the implications of the budget on lone-parent families. As has already been mentioned two thirds of the country's poorest children live in one-parent families. When we make changes, as the Minister has, it is sometimes very difficult to ensure that the cumulative changes on one particular group do not lead to unintended consequences for that group. It is not often understood that in more than 50% of all lone-parent families, the lone parent is working outside the home. However, most lone parents who work outside the home work in low-paid and low-skilled jobs, many of which involve unsocial hours. In recent years we have failed to provide adequate good-quality child care to enable lone parents to work outside the home. Some of the budget measures that particularly impact on lone parent families need to be kept under review if we are to prevent the level of poverty experienced by children in Ireland increasing further. In 2010 half of one-parent families had to go without essentials such as adequate heating for the home, substantial meals, clothing and footwear because they were unable to afford them. It is common knowledge that the best way to lift children out of poverty is to enable their parents to engage in good quality work. The issue we face is the quality of work in which lone parents engage. We need to consider measures to sit side-by-side with this budget to enable lone parents back into good-quality work.

Rent supplement particularly impacts on single people and lone parents. I agree with the Minister that we should be aiming to get better bang for our buck — better value for the money the State expends — with more than €500 million being spent on rent supplement. She has indicated that she also intends to cut the rent supplement rates as well as increasing the personal contribution. It is well recognised that some of the previous cuts have led to a very comprehensive system of topping up — in other words where the rent supplement recipient actually pays out of his or her social welfare payment rather than receiving a cut from the landlord. Topping up has become so prevalent that it is no longer unusual for rent-supplement recipients to top up their rent supplement payments. Certain legalities make it very difficult for people in receipt of rent supplement just to achieve an across-the-board cut. For example, most community welfare officers now require tenants to have leases which lock them into 12-month agreements. In other words if my rent is down as €1,000 a month, as my rent supplement has been reduced by the Department of Social Protection, I am not in a position just to give an across-the-board cut. The Residential Tenancies Act 2004 stipulates that rents can only be reviewed once annually. Therefore, in the timing of any of these measures it is very important not to put vulnerable people in a situation where rather than their landlord taking the cut they themselves are effectively topping up out of scarce social welfare payments.

I welcome the transfer of the rent supplement payment to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. However, when reviewing this measure I ask the Minister to consider that there are certain aspects of the rented market where an across-the-board cut will not only put vulnerable people at risk, but will also not achieve the result the Minister hopes.