Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Socialist Party)
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21. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the analysis carried out of the impact the changes to the one-parent family allowance will have on poverty levels, deprivation and the level of employment among lone parents; and if she will reverse the decision to end payments to those whose youngest child is aged seven. [9375/15]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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There are currently approximately 70,000 recipients of the One Parent Family Payment and it is expected that the scheme will cost €607 million in 2015.

Before I introduced the reforms, the One Parent Family Payment was a passive scheme with limited engagement by the State with recipients. For many lone parents, most of whom are women, this has meant long-term social welfare dependency, associated poverty and social exclusion for them and their families.

Social transfers have provided a hugely important buffer in reducing poverty. Expenditure on the scheme is estimated at €607million in 2015 with almost 70,000 recipients. However, lone parents remain particularly at risk of poverty. This is not new. Lone parents have traditionally experienced higher rates of poverty than other groups. By contrast the poverty rates for those in work are very low.

This is why I believe that the reforms I have introduced are much needed. The best route out of poverty and social exclusion is through paid employment. I want to end the expectation that lone parents may remain outside of the workforce indefinitely. I want to support lone parents to develop their skills set and, ultimately to secure employment.

I have also made significant changes to the arrangements in place for affected customers as they transition. These include the introduction of the jobseeker’s allowance (JA) transitional arrangement which gives lone parents with young children the flexibility to work part time or engage in full time education, access to subsidised child care through the after school child care (ASCC) scheme and the community employment childcare (CEC) programme and the extension this week of OFP to all lone parents providing full-time care, until their youngest child is 16 years of age.

The Department of Social Protection has published an integrated social impact assessment of Budgets 2013, 2014 and 2015, using the ESRI SWITCH model.

The Government has committed itself to carrying out a social impact assessment of the main social welfare and tax measures for 2016 and subsequent years before the publishing of budgets. This will be conducted by a cross-Departmental body led by the Departments of Finance, Social Protection, and Public Expenditure and Reform.

There are no plans to reverse the final phase of the OFP reforms, which are currently underway.