Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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166. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide, in tabular form by county, the number of persons being impacted by the changes being introduced to the one-parent family payment on 1 July 2015. [25883/15]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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It is anticipated that approximately 29,400 one-parent family payment recipients will be transitioning out of the one-parent family payment scheme on 2 July, 2015.

A breakdown by county basis of the number of persons who will be impacted by the changes is not available.

Brendan Griffin (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
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167. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if changes to the eligibility for the one-parent family payment will be reversed in view of the hardship these changes will cause; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [25918/15]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Expenditure on the One Parent Family Payment (OFP) scheme is estimated to be €607million in 2015 with almost 70,000 recipients.

However, despite committing extensive funding to lone parent payments since the 1970s, lone parents remain the most at-risk-of-poverty, and their children are at a high risk of poverty. For too long, significant numbers of lone parents have been typecast, and confined to social welfare dependency. The best route out of poverty and social exclusion is through paid employment. The purpose of the reform of the one parent family payment is to maximise the opportunities for lone parents to enter into and increase employment.

The reforms seek to address the long-term social welfare dependency and poverty experienced by many lone parents by providing them with improved access to the Department’s range of education, training, and employment supports, such as back to education allowance, back to work enterprise allowance and community employment. In addition, I was pleased to introduce the back to work family dividend in the last Budget. This provides a significant incentive for families with children to move into employment, as recently reported by the ESRI.

Access to these services and supports is imperative for lone parents, in order to ensure that their prospects of securing employment and financial independence are improved.

Any reversal of these reforms would delay this critical interaction between lone parents and the Department’s Intreo services and would potentially increase the barriers they face to entering employment in the future.

I therefore have no plans to reverse the forthcoming changes to the one parent family payment.

However, I look forward to examining the various supports available to all families, including single parent families, in the next Budget.