Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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137. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if he will carry out an impact assessment on the cuts to the one-parent family payment to analyse the impact of these cuts on child poverty and to ascertain if this has directly added to the high poverty levels of children living in one-parent households; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15214/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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My Department monitors on an ongoing basis all social welfare income support schemes including the one-parent family payment scheme (OFP).

The majority of customers affected by the reforms to the OFP scheme transitioned to the jobseeker’s transitional payment (JST). My Department, at the request of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, intend to carry out a Value for Money review of the JST scheme and this is due to be completed during 2017.

It is important to highlight that in Budget 2016 OFP recipients gained a 75% Christmas bonus, a €5 increase in Child Benefit and an increase of €2.50 per week in fuel allowance. Those in receipt of that family income supplement (FIS) also benefitted from the increases to the FIS thresholds. Lone parents on JST also gained as a result of the closer alignment of the JST means test with the more generous OFP means test.

My Department published a social impact assessment of the main social welfare and tax measures of Budget 2015 and 2016. The assessment found that the cumulative impact of these budgets on lone parent households fared above that of the average household. The assessment indicated that average income in households where the lone parent is employed will rise by 2.8 per cent, while that of unemployed lone parents will rise by 2.4 per cent.