Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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412. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the estimated full year cost of reversing changes made to the one-parent family payment in 2012; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [14732/18]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The cost implications of reversing the changes made to the One-Parent Family Payment (OFP) in 2012 would be very complex to estimate and would require significant resources and time to prepare. In addition some of the impacts cannot be quantified.

There are three significant barriers to undertaking this costing exercise. Firstly, by reversing the amendments made to the OFP scheme, this could result in a cohort of lone parents that are currently not in receipt of a social welfare payment becoming eligible and therefore moving onto a social welfare payment. As members of this cohort are not currently in receipt of any social welfare payment, the Department currently has no visibility of them and therefore it would be impossible to accurately estimate the numbers involved.

Secondly, this proposal may incentivise some customers to move from alternative payments such as Jobseekers Allowance (JA), the Jobseeker’s Transitional Payment (JST) and the Back to Work Family Dividend (BTWFD) back onto the OFP. Again, it would not be possible for the Department to estimate the magnitude of this flow between schemes.

Finally, reversing the changes to the OFP scheme would also increase the incidence of dual payments of OFP and the Working Family Payment (WFP) – formerly the Family Income Supplement – which would lead to significant but unquantifiable reductions in FIS payments for some lone parents.

These unknown factors are critical to providing a reliable costing. Therefore, as has been previously indicated to the Deputy, the Department is not in a position to provide the costing requested.