Written answers

Thursday, 9 July 2015

Department of Social Protection

One-Parent Family Payment Expenditure

Photo of Ruth CoppingerRuth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

100. To ask the Minister for Social Protection following the pre-budget forum held on 3 July 2015 if she will reverse the recent changes made to the one-parent family payment. [28149/15]

Photo of Joan BurtonJoan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I was pleased to host the Department’s annual pre-Budget forum in Dublin Castle last Friday. Thirty-seven community and voluntary groups participated in the forum. The forum gave organisations that represent the community and voluntary sector, including lone parent representative groups, an opportunity to voice their views and priorities in relation to social welfare expenditure in the context of the forthcoming Budget. In light of these views and priorities, which I openly welcomed, I look forward to examining the various supports that are available to all families, including lone parent families, in the next Budget.

This year the Department will be spending approximately €607 million on the one-parent family payment scheme.

However, despite extensive funding being committed 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, also, confined to long-term social welfare dependency. The best route out of poverty and dependency is through paid employment. The purpose of the recently implemented changes to the one-parent family payment scheme is to maximise the opportunities for lone parents to enter into and increase employment.

The changes to the scheme, which culminated in the reduction of the maximum child age threshold to 7 years for all recipients on 2 July, 2015, address the poverty and dependency experienced by many lone parents by providing them with improved access to the Department’s range of education, training, and employment supports. 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 supports is imperative for lone parents in order to ensure that their prospects of securing employment and financial independence are improved.

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

I therefore have no plans to reverse the recent changes to the one-parent family payment scheme.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.