Dan Boyle
Question:78 Mr. Boyle asked the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the reason her Department has chosen to engage in a review of income support payments to single parent families. [24292/03]
Vol. 573 No. 1
78 Mr. Boyle asked the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the reason her Department has chosen to engage in a review of income support payments to single parent families. [24292/03]
Ireland currently has among the highest proportions of lone-parent families within the EU, with over 11% of households headed by a lone parent. Up to 45% are in employment, a low percentage compared to other countries. For most lone parents, the one parent family payment is their main or only source of income. The duration of nearly half of these payments is for more than eight years. Long-term dependency on social welfare payments increases the likelihood of being at risk of poverty and in 2001, some 42.9% of lone parents in Ireland had a level of income which put them in the "at risk of poverty" category. The children of lone parents also comprise a high proportion of children at risk of poverty.
As employment is the best way out of poverty, lone parents face a heightened poverty risk, as they have to be the main breadwinner and main carer at the same time. One of the objectives of the one-parent family payment is to facilitate lone parents in obtaining employment as an alternative to welfare dependency, while at the same time enabling them to remain in the home if they so wish.
I have given a commitment in my Department's statement of strategy to review the income support arrangements for lone parents. The main purpose of the review is to establish the extent to which the scheme may be acting as a disincentive to recipients taking up employment, and to making the transition to full-time employment, greater self sufficiency and a better overall standard of living for them and their children.