Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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77. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the budgetary measures she plans to take in view of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Social Protection's report on the position of lone parents published in June 2017; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [38853/18]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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As Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection my priorities include children living in consistent poverty, and lone parent families. I welcomed the Joint Oireachtas Committee’s report of 2017 on the Position of Lone Parents in Ireland, as it helps to inform the policy in this area.

Social transfers are very effective in reducing poverty, and Eurostat data shows that Ireland performs well in this regard. However, reducing poverty for lone parents is not just about income support. The latest CSO Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) for 2016 shows that being at work reduces the consistent poverty rate for lone parents by nearly two-thirds. This highlights that the best way to tackle poverty among lone parents is to assist them into employment.

The activation service provided by my Department focuses on supporting lone parents to make the transition into employment. At a cross-governmental level, the focus is on assisting these families through the provision of quality services in areas including education, training and employment supports, and childcare. All of these services are crucial to assisting lone parents into employment, and to lifting both them and their children out of poverty.

I am conscious that lone parents face challenges that two-parent families do not face. On this basis, I introduced increases to the income disregard for lone parents in Budget 2018, alongside other measures, including the primary rate and the increase for a qualified child, which have assisted lone parents. For example, a lone parent working 15 hours per week at the National Minimum Wage, is now better off by almost €1,000 per year.

Any changes to One-parent Family Payment in Budget 2019 will have to be considered in the overall budgetary context, in light of available resources and other priorities.