Vol. 476 No. 2
209 Mr. Kenneally asked the Minister for Social Welfare the reason those in receipt of lone parent's allowance are treated more generously than those on unemployment assistance in respect of means-testing when they take up employment or go on a FÁS programme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6872/97]
A necessary feature of the social welfare system is that it must be flexible enough to respond adequately to the differing needs of the various categories of social welfare recipients. The different methods of assessing earnings as between the various payment schemes reflect specific policies being pursued by my Department, which are aimed at targeting particular groups of recipients for special attention, for example, family income supplement for people working who have dependent children, revised arrangements or unemployment assistance for part-time workers, retention of adult dependant allowances for people whose spouse is working, in certain circumstances, retention of child dependant allowances for people who are working, in certain circumstances, and the back-towork allowance scheme for long-term unemployed people taking up work.
In the case of the one-parent family payment (OFP) the unemployment assistance schemes are not directly comparable. While title to unemployment assistance is based on the claimant being unemployed, OFP addresses the contingency of lone parenthood and title is not based on the employment status of the claimant. Research has clearly shown that lone parent families are vulnerable to poverty and social exclusion, and the OFP is designed as an income support mechanism to take into account the special needs and requirements of persons parenting alone and maintaining a household.
It is also aimed at facilitating lone parents to return to the workforce by providing positive support so that, over time, they can become less reliant on social welfare payments for their income needs. This is the rationale behind disregarding a lone parent's earnings up to £6,000 a year for means purposes.
On the other hand, earnings disregards applying to other social assistance schemes are designed to achieve different objectives. The method of assessing earnings for unemployment assistance (UA) purposes is now simplified so that where a person works for up to three days a week, earnings are now assessed at 60 per cent. This is designed to improve the incentive for unemployed people to take up casual and parttime work opportunities. A further improvement in relation to earnings disregards, which I am introducing in this year's Social Welfare Bill, is that where the spouse of an UA recipient is working and earning over £60 a week, an adult dependant allowance will continue to be paid on the UA claim, at a reducing rate, until the spouse's earnings exceed £90 a week. At present, the adult dependant allowance is withdrawn once earnings exceed £60 a week.
I am satisfied, therefore, that in the best interests of social welfare recipients generally the system needs to retain a degree of flexibility to respond effectively to the differing needs of those who depend on it, and that this is best achieved by specific policies geared towards tackling the particular needs of various groups of recipients.
