Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief, but I want to try to address some of the issues which have been brought to my attention. I thank Senators for their comments. It is very interesting to hear different people's perspectives on a policy which, in the main, was very good.

The Indecon report clearly stated it was a very good policy and the outcomes of the policy objectives were, in the main, achieved. We all have to acknowledge that while the policy reforms were very well intended, they happened to be coupled with the then Government's decision to take €4 billion out of the social welfare system because the country did not have a bean at the time. That the decision coincided with the changes resulted in the outcome the Indecon report clearly stated.

Let us not ignore the objectives of the policy changes and the result, namely, that it did exactly what we set out to do. There were unintended consequences arising from the cutbacks which had to be made. Let me be very clear. It is to be hoped that our bona fides can be seen for what they are. For example, we increased the disregard by €20 in the budget. For the first time in eight years we increased the qualifying child allowance and extended one or two of the other measures, including the back to work dividend and the fuel allowance, all of which goes towards making life a little bit easier than it was before the changes were made. Until we fully unwind the cuts which were made to lone parents, the policy that the then Labour Party Minister introduced will not be able to flourish in the same way as it would have if we had not had to introduce the cuts at the same time.

I cannot guarantee Senator Higgins that the €45 million taken from lone parents will be given back. Everybody acknowledges and recognises that fact, and I thank the Senator for saying so. I did not arrive into the Department of Social Protection and pick the most populist group of people who we would hear from very loudly if we were going to make changes. This particular group of people probably do not have the same levels of respect others in this country enjoy. I do not want to pick on Senator Higgins, but that reflects what she touched upon.

It goes back to societal opinions of women, in particular unmarried mothers, in years gone by. If I do nothing else in whatever short period of time I am in this Department, we are going to break that stereotypical image. The vast majority of women I know who are parenting alone work bloody damn hard and deserve to take home more of the money which they go out and earn in work. There is a misconception that they are all sitting at home drinkinglattes, but that is far from the truth. As long as I am here not only will I champion the hard work which is carried out by women in this country, I will also recognise that it is more than twice as hard for women and men who are parenting alone than those who are cohabiting and jointly taking on board the work involved.

I wish to address one or two issues. A Senator mentioned she had an issue with the fact that the changes we made forced women whose children were as young as seven years of age to go out to work. That is factually incorrect. The JST payment which was introduced gives exactly the same means disregards and protections as the one parent family payment does for those parents with children aged between seven and 14 years. The only thing they need to do is engage with the Department of Social Production in order to discuss training and possibly going back to college.

I do not think anybody in this House or the Lower House would challenge me on this point. As a Government we have greater ambition for the women of Ireland who find themselves parenting alone than to take them off welfare and put them into low paid jobs. That is not the ambition I have for my sisters in this country. I have an ambition that they will be able to earn decent wages doing jobs they love or, at the very least, enjoy on a weekly basis and get paid pretty well so that they can improve their and their children's lives in a better way than heretofore.What was implied was not factually correct. The supports within the JST scheme are exactly the same for children and their parents until they reach the age of 14.

I acknowledge the compliments by various Members with regard to the change the Minister for Education and Skills introduced a number of months ago regarding the bursary for lone parents. Again, this feeds into the fact that we all have an ambition to achieve better outcomes and brighter futures.

This leads me very nicely to my concluding remarks. It is not just the responsibility of the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection to ensure better outcomes for children living in consistent poverty and people parenting alone. It is not just a matter of saying we want to ensure lone parents will get work so they will not be depending on welfare. What we want for people are the services that wrap around working families, be they single-parent families or dual-parent families. It is a question of ensuring child care is supported financially by the State, that education will become more affordable or less of a cost to families, and that we extend the already introduced free GP care for children from naught to six to children up to 12 or 18 years of age. It is a matter of addressing the housing crisis by building more social housing and not quoting statistics, as Senator Craughwell said. We are all aware of the numbers of houses to be built in the next 12 months, 24 months and 36 months. Admittedly, the rate of construction is not half as fast as we would all like, but the houses are coming. In the round, that will alleviate the problems for the section of society in question, which is probably more affected by the housing crisis than some others.

I recognise I am not touching on maintenance. Suffice it to say that if anybody is under the impression that we deduct money in respect of those who have been promised maintenance and have not received it, he or she should realise we categorically do not do so. If Senators have examples of where they believe this is happening, however, they should please bring them to my attention and we will address them. Under no circumstances are people's means taken into account when we assess their overall means if they are not actually getting the money. That would be totally counterproductive. If the Senators have specific cases, however, they should please come to me.

With regard to the overall recommendation in the joint committee's report on means, I will revert to the House. The work we started was interrupted by Indecon and the budget. I will revert to the House on another date, if Senators do not mind. Our ambition is to ensure we meet our target regarding the 113,000 children living in consistent poverty, many of whom come from lone-parent families. We may not meet it by 2020. I do not know whether Senators saw the report we released last week. It was a joint report issued by the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Katherine Zappone, and me. We may not meet the target by 2020 simply because the goalposts keep moving in respect of the median of 60% since the economy is recovering. That is great but it is not so great when my target is specifically based on 60% of the average income.

Senator Nash should note that we will be helped by the fact that we will achieve a national minimum wage of €10.50. Along with very many of the companies that already pay the living wage, we hope we will actually get there sooner than some of the sceptics who challenge us believe. I hope we get there a hell of a lot sooner. There is no doubt in my mind that the target of €10.50 will be met within the lifetime of this Government, depending on how long that is.

I thank the Acting Chairman for the opportunity to speak today. I look forward to coming back to talk about the means and maintenance at a later date.