Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am taking this matter on behalf of the Minister for Social Protection. The matter is not dealt with in my reply but, given that the Senator raised it, I must point out that 80% of the women who were incarcerated in Magdalen laundries did not have babies. They are always very anxious to make that point. While some of them did give birth, the majority did not do so. It is important to clarify the position in that regard.

I thank the Senator for raising this important issue. The one-parent family payment, OFP, scheme has played an important role in providing income support to lone parents since its introduction in 1997. The payment was originally introduced, under a different name, by the late Frank Cluskey and was the main instrument and driver of Ireland's acceptance of people who are parenting alone. The number of OFP recipients stood at 77,209 in May 2014. The cost of the scheme for 2014 is estimated at €863 million. However, in the past the income support provided by the OFP scheme was passive in nature, with little systematic engagement being made by the State with recipients. This engendered long-term social welfare dependency and associated poverty among one-parent families.

Despite significant levels of State spending on the OFP scheme, results have been poor in terms of tackling poverty - a matter on which the Senator and I agree - and social exclusion rates among lone-parent families, which continue to experience higher rates of consistent poverty in comparison to the population generally. The survey on income and living conditions figures published in April show that in 2012 some 17.4% of lone parents in Ireland were experiencing consistent poverty, as compared to 7.7% of the population as a whole. The reforms to the OFP scheme that were introduced in the budgets for 2011, 2012, and 2013 aim to address these issues by providing the necessary supports to lone parents to help them to escape inter-generational poverty and joblessness. The reforms in question will improve lone parents' access to education, training and employment programmes so that they can develop their skillsets with the aim of attaining financial independence for both themselves and their families.

The Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2012 contains provisions to reduce, on a phased basis - from 2014 in the case of new entrants and from 2015 for existing recipients - the maximum age limit of the youngest child at which an OFP recipient's payment ceases to seven years. The next phase of the OFP age reductions will take place on 3 July 2014. It is expected that approximately 5,140 customers will leave the scheme on that date. The Department has contacted all affected customers and invited them to attend information seminars or one to one sessions in their respective social welfare local offices. The purpose of these sessions is to brief affected lone parents on the broad range of income and other supports, which the Department provides. Special arrangements have been introduced to assist affected lone parents in making the transition to other income support payments. For example, affected OFP customers who are also in receipt of family income supplement, FIS, will have their payments automatically adjusted to take account for their loss of OFP. The latter is one of the issues about which the Senator expressed concern.

Exiting OFP customers who are also in receipt of the half-rate carer's allowance payment will be moved to the full-rate version. Customers who do not fall into these two categories can apply for either the jobseeker's allowance payment or the jobseeker's allowance transitional arrangement. Applications for these income support payments are expedited for the customers in question. The jobseeker's allowance transitional arrangement was introduced in the Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2013 in order to support customers who lose their entitlement to the OFP payment and who have a youngest child aged under 14 years. In recognition of their caring responsibilities, these customers are exempt from the jobseeker's allowance conditions which require them to be available for, and genuinely seeking, full-time work. Former OFP recipients who avail of a jobseeker's payment - including the transitional arrangement - are required to engage fully with the Department's activation process. These customers will be assigned case officers who will work with them to jointly develop personal progression plans. The aim of a personal progression plan is to increase the customer's skills and job-readiness and assist his or her entry into the workforce. As part of this process, customers will be advised on a wide range of educational, training, and employment programmes that may be suitable for their specific requirements. Depending on their circumstances, customers may also receive information on a range of wider supports including FIS and the subsidised child care schemes that are provided by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. I hope I have answered at least some of the Senator's questions.