Ray Butler (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the report and the Minister's statement to the House. I know she is passionate about putting some of the wrongs to rights. The lone parents of Ireland make up a diverse group. It includes parents who have achieved the full range of educational qualifications. It is diverse in terms of the ages of parents and children and it includes families with one child to seven children or more. Lone-parent families include those who cohabit with partners or with partners and their families, so-called blended families. They may be single, separated, widowed or divorced. Many co-parent with ex-partners from whom they receive varying levels of co-operation. In short, there is no stereotypical lone parent or lone-parent family.

One-parent families have the highest consistent poverty rates at 26.2% of any group in Irish society. They suffer higher rates of deprivation at 57.9% compared to 25.5% in the general population. Children in one-parent families are three times as likely to live in constant poverty than families with two adults with one, two or three children. The consistent poverty threshold for a lone parent with one child is €278 per week, or €14,456 annually. Since 2012 constant poverty among lone-parent families has risen from 17.4% to 26.2% in 2015. Some lone-parent families have lower levels of education compared to the general population according to census 2011. Research has shown that better educated parents have better educated children and that those children have better economic outcomes as well as better mental and physical health. Among one parent families headed by a mother, research shows that education is more important than family structure in determining the well-being of the children. Education for lone parents may represent a huge opportunity to improve outcomes for all members of lone-parent families. Children in lone parent are more likely to suffer from long-term illnesses and disability than children in two adult households. These outcomes are strongly linked to poverty.

The challenges faced by lone parents have been increased by the cost of housing, especially the problem in the private rental market, as Senator Ardagh noted. Rents increased by an average of 13.5% in 2016. Lone parents do not have the same financial capacityor resilience as other family types while a lack of education and prohibitive costs of child care restrict their ability to increase their incomes. As a result of these and other factors, lone parents may be vulnerable to increases in the cost of housing. Some 65% of homeless families are lone-parent families where lone families comprise 26% of all families. Further research on this could examine this disparity in order to facilitate more effective intervention.

The Social Welfare Act 2016, enacted on 16 December 2016, included a commitment that a review to the changes to one-parent family payment schemes since 2012 would be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas within nine months of the Act's enactment. The review was to access the financial and social effects of the one-parent family payment changes, taking into account the effects of welfare dependence and the poverty rate of those affected. The scope for the review included the long-term age related policy to the schemes that were implemented since January 2012 in addition to shorter term change required to achieve savings across all social welfare expenditure over the same period following the economic downturn. As part of the review which Indecon carried out, there was a quantitative and economic analysis of a number of relevant databases to access the impact of the changes on lone parents. The review also included one of the largest surveys targeting one-parent families in Ireland.Responses were received and analysed from almost 3,700 lone parents directly affected by the changes.

The Indecon report which was laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas on Monday, 9 October contains several positive findings. It concludes that the policy changes introduced have been successful in increasing employment and reducing welfare dependency. It has found that the reforms increase the probability of lone parents securing both employment and higher employment income. The responses to the survey are in line with this finding, showing that the percentage of lone parents in full employment has increased from 15% to 22%. The report notes that welfare dependency rates among lone parents fell in the year after the one-parent family payment was lost and continued to fall in subsequent years. The review also highlights several areas of concern. It notes that many of those who lost their one-parent family payment remained unemployed or in low paid or part-time employment. The balance of evidence indicates there is an increased probability of being at risk of poverty as a result of the changes. All of this serves to emphasise the need for further supports aimed at assisting lone parents to obtain full-time employment or increased hours of work.

The findings made in the Indecon report support the rationale and continued reliance of the policy changes since 2012. However, the report also highlights the risk of poverty for lone parents without employment and those in low paid employment and the associated policy changes required to integrate those lone parents into the labour market. The report recommends a move to more tailored progression plans for lone parents, together with improved access to the child care, education and training and other supports required to allow them to access the labour market. These changes should help to improve the living standards of those concerned and reduce their risk of poverty. I understand a further review of the scheme to include data to the end of 2018 is planned.