Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)
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51. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will address a matter (details supplied) regarding the age limit for one-parent family payments; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26470/15]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Expenditure on the One Parent Family Payment (OFP) scheme is estimated to be €607 million 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.

In 2004, in the height of the economic boom, lone parents were more than 4 and a half times at risk of consistent poverty (their at risk of consistent poverty rate was 30%) when compared with the population as a whole.

In 2015, lone parents are 2 and a half times more at risk of consistent poverty (their at risk of consistent poverty rate was 23%) compared to the rest of the population. Research shows that being at work reduces the at-risk-of-poverty rate for lone parents by three-quarters, compared to those who do not.

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, community employment and the recently introduced back to work family dividend (worth €1,550 per child in the first year and €775 per child in the second year).

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 that are available to all families with children, including one-parent families, in the next Budget. In particular, I will look at the scope for improvements in the child benefit payment as well as in other supports for families that are engaged in both full-time and part-time employment.

The reforms to the one-parent family payment have highlighted the need for child care supports to be available for lone parents who make the transition into employment. On that basis I have introduced the jobseeker’s transitional payment. This payment allows lone parents whose youngest child is aged 7-13 years to balance their caring responsibilities by exempting them from having to be available for and genuinely seeking full time employment.

The Department, in conjunction with the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, also introduced the after-school child care scheme and the community employment childcare programme, in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Both of these schemes were funded by the Department from savings from the child benefit scheme and build on the 25,000 subsidised child care places that are provided to low-income parents by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs every year.

In relation to providing extra support for transitioning lone parents who live in rural areas and who are availing of education, the main source of student support nationwide is the SUSI grant – which is provided by the Department of Education and Skills and is available to lone parents on OFP and the jobseeker’s transitional payment. Included in the grant’s qualifying conditions is a clause that determines the level of income support that should be provided to a student in accordance with the distance that they live from their college.