I propose to take Questions Nos. 39 and 57 together.
My Department has very significant responsibilities in the provision of a range of support programmes for families. These include child benefit, one-parent family benefit, payments for families who are out of work through illness or unemployment, family income supplement and the carer's schemes. The primary objective of these schemes is to provide income support to assist families in caring for their members, especially children and elderly persons.
The Government-led "families first" approach in recent years has also involved the development in my Department of a range of new initiatives to address the effects of separation and divorce on families, to prevent marital breakdown, where possible, and to put in place a range of supports to assist families dealing with crises or major upheaval in their lives. I will shortly establish the family support agency to further strengthen the institutional framework for the development of effective and responsive family support services. The purpose of the planned fora is to provide me with the opportunity to hear the views of representative family members, especially parents, and representatives of those that work with them, including public representatives, about the challenges they are currently facing. I wish to hear how effective the services Government and the community and voluntary sectors are in helping them meet these challenges and in strengthening family well being. I will also wish to discuss how these services can be further developed and improved.
The outcome of this public consultation, together with the research evidence being compiled at both national and international levels, will be pivotal resources for the preparations already in train for the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the United Nations International Year of the Family in 2004, which are being co-ordinated by my Department.