Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The best way we can help lone parents is by helping them back into good paid work. The Minister of State at the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Gerald Nash, has started that process. The Senator mentioned special arrangements for lone parents. There are some companies that already operate special arrangements. I am aware the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection has raised with the Labour Market Council the issue of looking at areas where we can assist family friendly working hours specifically targeted at lone parents. There is a job of work to be done in that area and that will be done.

There are 25,000 subsidised child care places and many initiatives in place. An interdepartmental review group, under the remit of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy James Reilly, will report shortly. However, those cannot be reasons to do nothing; we have had that for too long in the past. We need to build a viable working society that values everybody equally and we have to assist everybody back into work, not just lone parents, across the whole spectrum. As a Minister of State with the special responsibility of activation, I see on a daily and weekly basis, when I am travelling and meeting communities, people who have distanced themselves from the workforce for two, five, six or seven years. In regard to single parents, the system that operated distanced those people for 18 to 22 years. I saw them regularly in my clinic when they came in after that period and had no way back into the workforce because their work skills were gone. There is, therefore, a major job of work to be done to ensure that everybody will be able to share in the recovery, which is taking some time, and that people will have a real possibility of actually entering the workforce and working their way out of poverty.

This is the third recession I have seen. I will not remind Senators of the other two. As Senator Mooney is sensitive today, I will not remind him of his party's past mistakes. I have witnessed groups in my constituency left behind in the 1990s. The answer was to throw money at the problem in the hope that it would disappear but it did not and instead created intergenerational unemployment which did nobody any favours. We have to ensure we do not do that again.

I commend the Bill to the Seanad. The issues raised relate to decisions made in 2012 and are being phased in over a period. It should be mentioned that if a lone parent takes up a job and gets the additional hours, there will be a significant increase in take home pay. That point seems to be missed. I agree that we have to do everything in our power to make sure all our citizens have an opportunity to share in the benefits of what the Senator called the land of milk and honey and, hopefully, we will get there. I have always had great time for the Senator but I think he let himself down a little bit today.