Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 65: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the reason for the anomaly whereby a lone parent engaged in a community employment scheme is at a disadvantage of more than €45 a week when compared to a lone parent in part-time work and accessing family income supplement. [17131/05]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Community employment is a part-time, publicly funded transitional programme designed to progress the long-term unemployed and other disadvantaged groups towards re-entering the labour market. CE participants receive payments which are in excess of their entitlements under the social welfare system and retain entitlement to secondary benefits, where applicable. Participants are free to supplement their payment through earnings from work outside of the programme hours. In addition, a lone parent may continue to receive a reduced one-parent family payment while participating on a CE programme, for example, the one-parent family payment is reduced by approximately €22 per week in respect of a lone parent with one child receiving €190 per week on a CE scheme.

The purpose of the family income supplement scheme is to create an incentive for full-time workers with dependent children to take up or remain in employment in circumstances where it might not otherwise be more attractive financially than the appropriate social welfare payment. Consequently, the provision of additional family income support via the family income supplement to participants in a programme which is already 100% publicly funded would not be consistent with FIS policy objectives as currently structured and is not considered appropriate in the circumstances.

However, I am involved in examining a range of comprehensive reforms in the area of lone parents, including income supports and removing obstacles to returning to work and education. A steering group, chaired by the Department of the Taoiseach, is also addressing obstacles to employment faced by lone parents.