Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for her agreement to do such a report. It would be useful. We will come to lone parents on the one-parent family payment in a later amendment. I still have concerns about the cut-off age of 14 when lone-parent families who have children are no longer recognised as lone parents within the system and no longer qualify for the transitional jobseeker's payment or the one-parent family payment. Those cohorts are especially vulnerable because the research tells us that, in fact, it gets more expensive when a parent has a teenager. Those parents have heightened expenses because the children will become more expensive at that point but they no longer qualify for the transitional jobseeker's payment or the one-parent family payment. That cohort is especially vulnerable when on the working family payment. It is a small cohort but it is significant. I very much appreciate the Minister will look at this in the report. I ask that she looks to ensure the small cohort of one-parent families who, as we know, are especially vulnerable to poverty but are not under the one-parent family scheme are configured in the examination of the working family payment.