Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 111: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the steps he has taken or proposals he has considered to make the social welfare system father friendly; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6044/05]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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People are only identifiable in the social welfare system as parents when they have child dependants. Traditionally, the father was the main and often the sole breadwinner, with the mother, as the main caregiver, being regarded as dependent on the father. Implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women in recent decades has involved making the social welfare system both more mother and father friendly.

The mother, as normally the primary care giver, now generally receives child benefit payments, which before had been payable to the father as main breadwinner. There are no longer differences in payments or in eligibility conditions for men and women under the social welfare system and the concept of dependancy has largely been removed. Both men and women are equally eligible for benefits or pensions, if they become a lone parent, but the majority of lone parents, some 86.4%, are women.

Recognition of the mother as primary caregiver has meant that where the parents are separated, the mother usually retains custody of the children and, if there is eligibility, full entitlement to the one parent family payment. The scheme as it currently operates, therefore, may not sufficiently facilitate or promote joint parenting, and to that extent may not be sufficiently father friendly. This is one of the issues being examined both in a review of obstacles to employment under the one parents' family scheme being carried out by the senior officials group reporting to the Cabinet committee, and in the context of an examination of strategies for families which is being co-ordinated by my Department. The outcome of these projects will receive priority attention.

Greater involvement of both parents in the rearing of their children is in the interests of all concerned, and any changes to the social welfare system and, in particular, the one parent family payments, that may be needed to achieve that will be fully considered.