Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Services north of the Border are more developed and extensive. There has been a significant expansion and development here of child care and creche places. The critical issue here is that we want to open up fresh opportunities for lone parents. As stated in the ESRI's report published last week, despite our having a significant volume of cash payments to lone parents the outcomes in terms of a reduction in child poverty are nowhere near what I believe everyone in this House aspires to. The evidence in that study and all other studies is that the best route is to allow people parenting on their own to remain strongly connected to education-training, thereby enhancing their education and qualifications, leading to financial independence through employment or development of their own business, which will be increasingly the case in future years in all categories of people at work in Ireland.

This measure seeks to enhance the outcomes for lone parents. As I stated last week, there are relatively small savings involved. Other countries with social protection systems which we admire and find credible and creditable apply a far younger age. Senators need to consider why this is so and whether Ireland can learn something from these countries in terms of improving outcomes for children experiencing poverty, which we are all concerned to addressed. We are spending a great deal of money, more than €1 billion, on lone parent payments. The report published last week shows once again that the outcomes for that type of spend in terms of the reduction of the risk of poverty for children in such families or the experience of poverty is nothing like it ought to be. The critical task is to improve our system in a way that makes sense.

These measures will be introduced on a phased basis over a number of years. Our system of social welfare has been described as "passive", with people entering our system of social welfare who may be left alone. We are changing the system for jobseekers so that there is strong interaction. That is through the Pathways to Work initiative, and these measures will include taking into account the family circumstances of people. If somebody is parenting on his or her own, family circumstances account for a great deal in how they would arrange their working life and arrangements.

We are developing a new model of a more active social welfare system with the object of giving better outcomes to both people who are jobseekers and lone parents. Ultimately, this will lead to better outcomes for their children. We are investing over €20 billion a year in this country in social welfare payments but we are not achieving the outcomes that we, as a society, deserve for that kind of investment in social spending.