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

I cannot acquiesce to it. I can certainly look at the options in regard to positively allowing people to continue to engage with their Intreo office, with case managers and so on. However, from a policy perspective, what the Senator is asking me to acquiesce to is that it is okay to maintain lone parents on social welfare until their youngest child is 18. I genuinely cannot acquiesce to that as it would undermine the entire fundamentals of the policy. What we are trying to do is take women, when their children are in full-time education at age seven, albeit in primary school, and provide them with educational supports, activation and employment experience so they can be ready, if they want it, to move into either part-time or full-time education or work experience when their child is 14. To change the policy to allow them to stay on one-parent payments until the child is 18 totally undermines the policy.