Vol. 537 No. 1
2 Mr. Broughan asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs if he is planning any initiatives to address the level of poverty among one parent families which was highlighted in a recent NESF report. [15307/01]
The National Economic and Social Forum – NESF – held a plenary session on Monday 14 May 2001 to discuss the draft report of its project team on lone parents. There is nothing in the draft report to support recent media reports that the risk of poverty for lone parents has increased six-fold since 1981. One newspaper subsequently published a correction to its misleading report. The data in the report indicate that the poverty risk for lone parent families, that is, the numbers who fall below the 50% income poverty line, increased from 17% in 1987 to 29% in 1994. Recent data indicate that it has remained at that level in 1997.
That said, lone parents and their children remain one of the groups in society who are most at risk of poverty. Accordingly, a range of measures has been introduced to improve the overall incomes of lone parents and to deal with their training and education needs.
It is generally recognised that the most effective route out of poverty is through employment. The earnings disregard is a major feature of the one-parent family payment which is designed to
recognise the additional costs which a lone parent may face in moving into employment. The Department's review of the one-parent family payment, published last year, found that approximately 60% of recipients supplement their social welfare payments with earnings, which is an encouraging statistic.
Arising from the review, I included provisions in the Social Welfare Act, 2001, to allow lone parents to retain 50% of any maintenance received. It is hoped this measure will improve the overall income for lone parents as well as facilitating the payment of maintenance by the other parent.
Also following the review, I initiated a pro-active programme for one-parent family payment recipients to ensure that they are aware of the employment, education and training opportunities available to them. This includes a systematic programme of interviews for selected groups to advise and assist them in accessing supports.
I have also decided to localise the administration of the scheme from the pension services office in Sligo to the Department's local offices. In this regard, arrangements for a pilot scheme have been put in place recently in the Department's Tallaght office. This move will bring lone parents into closer contact on an ongoing basis with the various support services available in the Department's offices and will therefore be useful in promoting the programmes available to encourage lone parents back into education, training and employment.
In budget 2001 I announced changes to the back to education scheme designed to assist and encourage young lone parents to return to education. From this autumn the scheme will be available to 18 year olds who have been in receipt of the one-parent family payment for at least six months and who have been out of the education system for two years. I should also remind the Deputy that the Government is committed to dramatically increasing child benefit by £1 billion over the next three years.
Additional Information
In budget 2001, I provided for an increase of £25 per month for each of the first and second children, and £30 per month for each of the third and subsequent children. These increases will come into effect in June this year, three months earlier than normal, and be of major benefit to lone parents.
The Government is strongly committed to eliminating poverty for all our people and recognises the particularly high risk of poverty faced by lone parents. In this regard the position will be reviewed in a budgetary context.
We will have to wait until the autumn for the full report of the NESF on the level of poverty among lone parent households. Is it not a fact, however, that this is one of a series of reports produced during the years? I remem ber, in particular, Out of Sight: the Hidden Poverty of Women, published by the National Women's Council which clearly indicated that at least one quarter of the almost 80,000 lone parent family households were living in absolute poverty. The facts indicate that this continues to be a very serious issue. The NAPS designated lone parents as one of the five key groups with which we should be dealing. It is, therefore, a serious problem.
The Minister mentioned some of the measures he is prepared to take but throughout his four years in office he has left the earnings disregard alone. As he has often said that going out to work and having a part-time job is one of the best routes out of poverty, why did he not increase the disregard, given that he has had four years in which to do so?
As regards the area of community employment, is it not a fact that women who head families on their own have taken most advantage of vital and socially useful jobs at local level? The Minister's colleague, the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Harney, is, however, decimating that sector. As I tried to tell the Taoiseach a few days ago on the Order of Business, we have not replaced it with a social economy scheme. Everyone in the House is aware that social economy schemes play a major role in providing child care and other local development projects. Many women would be delighted to fill such posts but they are being crushed further. I noticed during the week that very trendy journalists—
The Deputy is giving more information than he is seeking.
It is necessary.
It is not.
I am asking the Minister to change his policy on a number of important issues, particularly the earnings disregard. Even if it does not come under the aegis of his Department, he should ask the Tánaiste to lay off community employment, or else come back with a social economy programme which will encourage lone parents to return to work. Despite his last few comments, it is fair to say that he has never seriously addressed the issue of training for lone parents.
I do not accept much of what the Deputy said but a review of one parent family payments has been undertaken. Soon after its publication I brought forward a number of initiatives, particularly the ability to retain maintenance payments, thus encouraging them to seek such payments. The disregard provided for a number of years ago was particularly generous, the most generous in the social welfare system, apart from carer's allowance.
It is way below the average industrial wage.
As someone who works on the ground, the Deputy is aware the disregard caused many difficulties with married women working side by side with lone parents in the same job and earning the same money, yet not having the ability to retain a social welfare payment. While, on the one hand, it caused such difficulties, on the other, it prompted lone parents to enter the workplace.
In the past year or two we have spent some time examining what other countries are doing about this matter. I had a working session with my counterpart in the United Kingdom to see exactly what was being done there, although we were not taking the same route. In the United Kingdom, the interaction between the Department responsible for social welfare and lone parents, on an individual basis, is much more compulsory than it is here.
Our research has shown that many lone parents want to return to work, if given an opportunity to do so. That is the reason we made changes to the back-to-education allowance.
We must move on to Question No. 3.
