JOINT COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL AND FAMILY AFFAIRS debate -
Wednesday, 3 Mar 2010

Draft Report on Financial Disincentives to Cohabitation and Marriage: Discussion with Treoir.

Chairman

I welcome Ms Dromey, chief executive, and Ms Margot Doherty, assistant chief executive, both from Treoir. I ask Ms Dromey to commence her presentation on the findings of a draft joint committee report on the financial disincentives to cohabitation and marriage. Members may then ask questions as necessary.

I draw the witnesses' attention to the fact that members of the committee have absolute privilege, but this same privilege does not apply to witnesses appearing before the committee. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that members should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

Ms Margaret Dromey

I am Margaret Dromey, CEO of Treoir, and I am joined by Ms Margot Doherty, assistant CEO. We are delighted to have the opportunity to discuss the disincentives in the social welfare and tax systems to the formulation of two-parent families. However, we do not have all of the answers. In the process of preparing our submission, many questions that will be pertinent for the committee emerged. I will briefly discuss Treoir to put into context our interest in this area. My colleague will take the committee through the submission, of which members have copies.

Treoir was founded in 1975 as the National Federation of Services for Unmarried Parents and Their Children. Its aim is to promote the welfare of unmarried families irrespective of whether they comprise a sole parent, cohabiting parents or a parent cohabiting with a step-parent. All of these people are of interest to Treoir because their legal situation is different from that of married families. This is our raison d’être. If married and unmarried parents were treated in the same way, an organisation like Treoir would not be necessary.

Membership of Treoir is open to professional agencies providing services to those working with unmarried parents. Members include maternity hospitals, self-help groups, adoption agencies, accommodation agencies, other specialist groups working with teenagers and some statutory bodies, such as the HSE. Our core principles are the recognition of the diversity of family life and the fact that all families, including unmarried families, have the same rights to respect, care, support, protection and recognition. We support and promote the rights of all children, as outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and firmly believe that they have a right to know and be loved and cared for by both parents.

We provide a specialist national information service for unmarried parents and those involved with them. We deal with approximately 10,000 calls per year regarding issues such as custody access, guardianship, joint parenting, registration of births, passport applications and so on, all of which are different for unmarried families. We produce a wide range of information publications. Committee members will have received a copy of our pack, which I hope they will find useful in their constituencies. We provide a series of workshops to those working in respect of the legal aspects of unmarried parents and co-parenting. Where parents live apart, we try to stress the importance of children having both parents in their lives. Nothing should prevent this from being the case. We are involved in promoting policy development and relevant research on the area. We provide a national resource centre for workers with young parents, as their legal situation differs from that of other parents. We are also involved in co-ordinating the teen parents support programme, a successful programme for young parents.

When Treoir was founded in 1975, Ireland was different. If a girl got pregnant and was not married, there was no option but to place the baby for adoption or to rush into a marriage. Keeping a baby on one's own was unacceptable. Fathers had no say in their children's lives. They did not figure legally at all. Even at that stage, however, our founders were committed to the notion of both parents being involved in children's lives. They called their organisation a federation of services for unmarried parents, not unmarried mothers, which would have seemed more appropriate at the time. They were ahead of their time.

Since then, our organisation has continued to be committed to joint parenting, as evidenced by one of our publications, entitled, "Family Links: Steps and Stages". This publication is intended to encourage both parents to be involved in their children's lives. It provides positive pointers for sole parents when discussing an absent parent with their children and on involving both parents in that child's life. We have run a number of successful radio awareness-raising campaigns on the importance to children of having both parents involved. We host workshops on shared parenting and were instrumental in promoting the "National Longitudinal Study of Children in Ireland", which is now known as the "Growing Up in Ireland" study. We did so because we were keen to see the impact on children of being raised by one parent and the benefits on having both parents involved. We are trying to conduct further analysis of the non-resident fathers interviewed as part of the longitudinal study. Over the years, we have constantly campaigned for equality of treatment for cohabiting couples by the Department of Social and Family Affairs and the Revenue Commissioners. We make pre-budget submissions to this effect every year. From the beginning, the idea of co-parenting permeates our work. We are particularly interested in considering the disincentives to cohabit in the social welfare and tax systems. Ms Doherty will run through our recommendations to the committee.

Ms Margot Doherty

In preparing a submission we considered the available statistics on unmarried parenthood, our area of expertise, and cohabiting. The last year for which statistics are available is 2008 and the presentation reflects the fact that 52% of births outside marriage are to parents living at the same address. In the first half of 2009, the period for which we have figures, the figure has increased to 57%. There is a strong indication that cohabitation is growing. Considering births to unmarried parents, we tend to assume these are single mothers but we do not know how many of the 12,000 births to parents not living at the same address result in a claim for one-parent family payments. The recently published ESRI study on family figures considered the 2006 census and found that cohabitation seems to be a prelude to marriage. As people get older, they tend to move into marriage. All in all, the level of cohabitation is rising and it appears a significant number of cohabiting parents go on to marry. It is an area we need to examine and make recommendations on.

Regarding the one-parent family payments, we understand from the Department of Social and Family Affairs there are 52,000 unmarried claimants of the one-parent family payment, which is a small number given that there are 12,000 per year who could possibly be claimants. Cumulatively over the years there are only 52,000 of them even though the inflow seems much greater than that. Why are they not receiving the payment? Is it that they are working and are over the minimum income limit? Is this because the child is a second child and the parent does not show up as a new claimant?

We spoke to the Minister for Social and Family Affairs about introducing the work test for one-parent family payment recipients. The Minister is considering introducing it for claimants whose child is 13 years or older. To our surprise, she said there are only 2,000 of those in any one year, a proportion of whom are unmarried parents. There is an increasing number of births outside marriage and cohabitation. There is not so significant an increase in the number of those claiming the one-parent family payment. A smaller number is claiming it than one might think and it does not seem to be a long-term dependency. The last year for which we have statistics from the EU SILC is 2006. It shows that lone parent households are nearly five times more likely than two adult households to be living in poverty. A case study presented by Mr. Colm Rapple indicates that families are financially better off living apart. The question is why these cohabitants are not showing up in poverty statistics. They are in two adult households with children. Greater minds than ours must be applied to understand the question.

Our first recommendation to the committee is for in-depth research on the number of women giving birth outside marriage, the number cohabiting and why two parent households, who should appear in the poverty statistics, do not. It is difficult to formulate social policy if one does not know the cost to the Exchequer. It seems sensible to undertake this research.

Mr. Colm Rapple considered the current situation. While couples at the lower end of the income spectrum, on the minimum wage, do not suffer any tax disadvantage because they do not come into the tax system, they suffer significant disadvantage if they are a single earning household. They are the most disadvantaged of married, single and cohabiting parents. The heart drops when we receive calls to the information centre from people who explain that they are unmarried parents and are considering moving in with a boyfriend who is working. There is no answer if they ask what are their entitlements. People on the average industrial wage, which is currently €38,000 per year, are in the worst possible scenario when it comes to rearing children together. Our second recommendation is that cohabiting parents should be treated the same as married parents in the income tax system.

Let us consider cohabiting parents in the social welfare system where they are treated the same way as married parents. If they move in together, they are financially disadvantaged, as the report of Mr. Colm Rapple shows. One must bear in mind, however, that there are economies of scale when two people live together. When one is on a low income, it is difficult to give up €20 or €40 to move in with another person.

Senator Nicky McFadden

That is the difference between survival and not surviving.

Ms Margot Doherty

Indeed. If one is on social welfare, one is in the poverty net. That is obvious. Unmarried mothers are slow to give up the security of their books because it is their income, they are sure of it and they know the State will not take it away. There is a certain degree of security. If they are in receipt of one-parent family payment, they have the possibility of employment and we know that 60% of one-parent family payment recipients are in employment. It is a difficult and complex system. Our third recommendation is that the Government introduces the proposals for supporting lone parents, suggested in 2006, of a parental allowance for all families on low income. That should be neutral in terms of people's choices and should ensure consistency across the board. It would hoped that it would remove property traps as long as was set at an adequate level.

The recent ESRI report on family figures suggests the potential for policy to alter family structures is not significant. There is a great number of people cohabiting, yet there are financial disincentives. What does that mean? We must examine this. We recommend the following principles in the report of the working group examining the treatment of married, cohabiting and one parent families under the tax and social welfare codes. The report suggests the principles of adequacy, equity, consistency and affordability. We agree with this. It also recommends recognition that it is in the best interests of children for both parents to be involved in their lives as much as possible and that there is a need to challenge the culture of dependency as well as the motivation to fraud within the system. That dependency and the motivation to fraud is not acceptable. In the short term we recommend the joint committee has an in-depth examination of the statistics available and that cohabitants be treated in the same way as married parents within the income tax and social welfare systems. In the medium term, we recommend the introduction of a parental allowance as recommended in the Government's discussion paper, Proposal for Supporting Lone Parents. In the long term, we recommend the full individualisation of income tax and social welfare systems so that it is a coherent system without tinkering or tweaking. Often, tweaking one area has an unforeseen knock-on effect in another area. It should be a comprehensive system based on the way we live now, not on the way we lived 50 years ago where there was a breadwinner and a mother in the home. We are living in a different world where lifestyles have changed and women go to work.

We strongly recommend that income support should be focused on children rather than families. The social welfare and income tax systems can be individualised but there should be a very good single income support for children that would collapse all current supports such as child benefit, the qualified child allowance and the family income supplement. Savings would be made if we individualised the income tax system and this could be pumped into a single support for children. It is in children we wish to invest for the sake of our future. We urge the committee to grasp the nettle of a complete overhaul of the system rather than a further tweak which may not be the solution.

Deputy Olwyn Enright

I thank the delegation for the presentations. I do not really have questions because to a large extent the information we had sought has been provided. Where is the information provided in the presentations available? As practising politicians we are approached by people with all types of books under their arms but I have not come across anyone with this information. How do people access it? How do the witnesses access lone parents? That is an aside from the general issue they are here to discuss but I am interested. The material would be very useful for our offices but I wish to know how people can access it for themselves.

The more information we receive the harder it is to know what we should do. It is very complex and the ESRI report is a contradiction of our starting position. The most interesting point made would demand that we throw out the entire social welfare system and start again. That probably would be the way to go because it is correct to state that one payment affects the next and that doing a particular thing can lead to losing rent supplement or a medical card.

Do the witnesses think that 13 should be the starting age? The previous Minister was considering the age of seven, about which I would be concerned. That is my only question at present. Something else might occur to me later.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I welcome the delegation to the joint committee and I agree with Deputy Enright's comments on the publications. They seem very attractive and comprehensive but I had not come across them. It would be a good idea to notify Deputies of their existence as they would be helpful in dealing with constituents.

This issue arose because of our experience of dealing with lone parents in clinics. We are very conscious of the poverty in which many lone parents live and of the poverty traps that exist in the social welfare system. We are also aware of lone parents who consider cohabiting or getting married but realise there are significant financial disincentives to doing so. Something is seriously wrong with the social welfare and tax systems if they act as disincentives. The committee was motivated to remove those disincentives because the tax and welfare systems should promote the best circumstances possible for children, which is to grow up with both parents caring for them.

I welcome the principles set down but the problem is how it is done and the nuts and bolts of the system that needs to be put in place to achieve the objective which we all want. Many of the figures spoken about with regard to cohabitation, in particular the contents of the ESRI report, refer to categories of people about whom we are not especially concerned at this meeting. It is probably standard practice for couples to cohabit for a number of years. Many of them then get married. As was stated in the presentation, many of them consider marriage when they think about having a family or when they have their first child. That is a different category of people and by and large they are not dependent on the State and do not see themselves as being dependent on the State in the future. They provide for themselves. We are particularly concerned about people living in poverty who become lone parents and cannot see any way out of it. A problem arises for these lone parents who want to cohabit or get married.

I agree that we probably need to do more work on the figures and we need to be more specific about the category of people we are discussing. One may state that the national figure is small enough but, as we know from our constituencies, there are concentrations of such people living in council estates. In a constituency such as mine with two very large council developments in Ballymun and Finglas the proportion of lone parents in those circumstances is very large. Deputy O'Connor would also be familiar with that situation. While there are pockets of this throughout the country there are concentrations in large council estates in the cities. It is very much part and parcel of a way of life and a culture that is not very desirable and is not in the interests of the children involved. That is what we wanted to try to deal with.

The point was made in the presentation that if people are much better off living apart why is there so much poverty among lone parents. They are better off living apart, but that does not mean the joint incomes are available to a parent who has guardianship of the children. The other person may have the rest of the income and is spending it in whatever way he or she wishes. By the figures, we mean an overall figure for both parents' incomes combined whereby they are better off living apart. However, it does not mean the total income is in the family home where the children are.

The other problem is with regard to low-income parents who live together or are married who see the difference in the way non-married or non-officially cohabiting couples fare. They seem to be much better off and are entitled to much more than the married couple. We have all come across such cases. Married people on low incomes who have done things by the book realise they are worse off and that creates much resentment. It is a real issue in working class areas.

Another important issue we need to emphasise in our report is the recent study conducted by the ESRI. It contains a glaring figure on the number of girls who do not get beyond junior certificate; one in four of them will go on to become a lone parent. Perhaps our strongest recommendation should be on tackling educational disadvantage, keeping young people in school until leaving certificate and reducing the chances of their becoming lone parents.

Organisations such as Treoir provide very valuable services to people who are parenting alone and we have to be mindful of that when considering policy. There must also be some emphasis on the prevention of lone parenthood, and education is probably the best way of doing so. I thank the witnesses for their input into this. We have more work to do as it is a very complex issue. We will take on board the recommendations made by the witnesses and recognise the fact that they are singing off the same hymn sheet as us on the policy changes that must take place, namely, that a parental payment should be made targeting children living in poverty, irrespective of the circumstances of their parents. We agree with that and our task now is to urge the Government to introduce such a payment.

Senator Nicky McFadden

I thank the delegation for attending. What does the word "treoir" mean?

Ms Margaret Dromey

It is an Irish word meaning direction, guidance or movement.

Senator Nicky McFadden

I thank Ms Dromey. There is no point in my going back over what my two colleagues stated. Essentially, we agree completely with what the witnesses stated. The disincentives to cohabiting and marriage are quite extraordinary and it is about empowering lone parents to be able to live without losing their benefits. That is the bottom line and we are fully supportive of what the witnesses have said.

I agree that it is good for children to know who both their parents are but what if the parents cannot get along or a father does not want anything to do with his child? I have experience from my political life of a case in which it was extraordinarily difficult to persuade a father to sign a passport form for his child who was going on a school tour.

The document on passport applications for children is very attractive but it focuses on going to court to establish custody. The father may have quit for America, for example. It is fine in an ideal world to say that both parents must be involved but that has not been my experience. There are irresponsible people, both male and female. What if the father does not care what his child looks like? While I appreciate the witnesses' idealism and aspirations, I am concerned that some people would consider the document to be a bit insensitive on this difficult matter. I would be interested to hear how the witnesses propose to access irresponsible parents who do not want to sign passport forms and other documents.

Deputy Charlie O’Connor

I apologise for having to step out but I am on call next door. Senator McFadden's contribution reminds me that we try to bring our life experience to our politics. I do not mind admitting that I am separated. I am also the single grandad of a little girl, the parents of whom are unfortunately separated. The importance of relationships comes across strongly to me.

Grandparents often come to us to lament the fact that they do not have access to their grandchildren. Thank God, that is not an issue for me because I have a great relationship with my family. Like most little girls of eight going on 14, my granddaughter is clear in her desire to be aware of her family. She knows all of us and she regularly checks with me whether my mother and father are still in heaven. It is important that we understand the challenges faced by children in this kind of relationship. Thank God, when I was a small child in the inner city and Crumlin I knew both my parents. It was a different time and parents stuck it out even if they did not get on well together. I do not know whether that was true of my parents but like all the people around them, they remained married. We now live in a different Ireland and perhaps that is fair enough.

I concur with my colleague, Deputy Shortall, regarding local authority estates. Crumlin, where I was reared, was and is a Dublin Corporation area and Tallaght, where I now live, has approximately 7,000 local authority houses. I do not wish to be unkind but there is a difference. I regularly encounter the issues outlined by the Deputy. All families are under pressure but some face more difficulties than others.

I commend Treoir on the work it is doing. The witnesses should not take what we say about their excellent documents personally. If Members of the Oireachtas can help by distributing them through our offices, we would be happy to do so.

The workings of the Oireachtas are sometimes treated with cynicism but I strongly believe that Oireachtas committees do very valuable work. Last week, this committee launched a report on indebtedness which was co-authored by my colleagues, Deputies Enright and Byrne. We were complimented by FLAC and other organisations for going about our business in an all-party manner. It is important that groups like Treoir take the opportunity to share their concerns with us. Our challenge is to deal with the issues they bring to our attention. We are hearing about these issues on the ground in our constituency offices and clinics but it is useful to have them highlighted. I hope Ms Dromey's throat recovers.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Will Deputy O'Connor prescribe an antibiotic?

Deputy Charlie O’Connor

I can do that too. I commend the witnesses on their presentation and the packs they have circulated to members. I suspect every Member of the Dáil would love to have a copy of the pack.

Deputy Catherine Byrne

My eyes are drawn to the lovely and easy to read booklets and I wonder where people can get them. As a parent I am passionate about children and believe they are all precious, whether they live in a family environment or with a single parent.

I find that certain parts of Dublin are ring-fenced and contain large numbers of young and lone parents. In some areas, this becomes a trend because a young girl gets status if she has a baby at the age of 16 or 17. Many of these young parents come from turbulent backgrounds and have dealt with problems within their own families.

During this economic downturn, I am increasingly concerned about the ways in which families of all shapes and sizes are struggling. We cannot rewrite what exists, although we can probably tweak it a little. Until the country sees light at the end of the tunnel, we will be facing an uphill battle.

I welcome the statistics which indicate a decrease in the number of pregnancies among girls of a very young age but young parents are finding it very difficult to survive on what they are paid. It is becoming increasingly difficult for them to access services. It is important that we keep young people in school until they reach a certain educational level and start to believe in their self-worth because there are more important things in life than becoming a parent at the age of 16 or 17. They should be established in themselves before they are thrown into motherhood. Having my first baby created a completely new situation for me. It took my husband and me time to get used to having a new person in our lives. I can honestly say that if I had been on my own, I would have had major problems and difficulties.

Being born in Dublin makes one realise that there are needs to be addressed in particular areas. One is aware of them from a very young age. One tries to cope with them oneself and as part of the community. A growing concern is the isolation of young people who become lone parents. They are not isolated from their families but from their communities. We are in changing times and many young people find themselves unemployed. As other members stated, these people regard it as an injustice that they, having worked, are now unemployed and receiving a lot less than the person down the road with one or two children. This is a growing concern and needs to be tackled and examined properly.

The Treoir booklet is wonderful. It is great to know that a pregnant schoolchild can avail of home tutoring. It is wonderful but there is a real need for us to consider how we educate our young and establish in their minds the idea that, while parenthood is wonderful, there is a time and place for it. We need to keep as many young people as possible in school such that they will have an education of a certain level. It is a question of parents having the resources to deal with a very young child if left on their own. I thank the delegation for its presentation, which I found very interesting.

Chairman

The Joint Committee on Education and Science is completing a report on early school leaving that deals in part with this issue. It will, I hope, be launched in St. Patrick's, Drumcondra, in May. Copies of the report can be circulated to members of the committee when it is published.

Deputy Joe Carey

I was interested in the contribution of Deputy Byrne. I became a parent for the first time in June last year. It was a very proud moment for me and my wife, Grace. Baby Alma is now eight months old. Every week when I come to Dublin, my wife is in charge of what is effectively a one-parent family at home. It is a difficult position to be in without the support and backing of neighbours, friends and family. This committee should be providing supports, including financial supports, for one-parent families. That is our principal role. The tax and social welfare systems should provide such supports.

I have big problems with some of the reports that Mr. Colm Rapple has put before us. Lone-parent families have expressed this view. Treoir is no different in this regard. Challenges and difficulties arise for lone-parent families, bearing in mind the huge personal debts people have amassed and difficulties they face in securing employment. If one can provide the supports to help families, particularly the children, one is working towards a laudable goal. I thank the delegates for their presentation. I have no doubt but that we will consider it fully and that it will feed into the process that has begun.

Ms Margaret Dromey

I thank the members for their feedback, both positive and negative. While our material is circulated very widely, it is obviously not circulated widely within the Houses. We need to address that. Every year, we publish at least 20,000 copies of our information pack, which is really our Bible. Every year, we produce a new edition. At the end of the year, copies run out and workers in the field become very concerned that they do not have them at their fingertips. All our materials are on our website and they are accessed very often. We monitor the number.

Deputy McFadden had to leave, unfortunately.

Deputy Charlie O’Connor

She is a Senator but Ms Margaret Dromey is anticipating her progress.

Ms Margaret Dromey

I thank the Deputy.

Senator McFadden made a point about unmarried fathers not giving consent for passports. This highlights the great difficulty that exists. There is an amazing amount of misinformation in circulation. There is a notion that a father must sign a passport. Unless a father is a guardian of a child, his consent is not required at all. The misinformation is typical of the kind that gives rise to the queries we receive in our office every day. When one teases out the issues, the reality of the circumstances is discovered to be very different from that originally envisaged. Unmarried fathers, as members know, have absolutely no automatic rights to their children. It is only if they apply for guardianship rights or obtain them by agreement with the mother that they have a say in their children's lives. Otherwise they have none. The departure of an unmarried father with no interest in his children has no impact on the mother's application for passports.

I totally accept the point on information being a bit insensitive. We aspire to the ideal of having both parents involved in a child's life. We know it is not always achievable, very often not because the father does not want to be involved but because the mother does not want the father to be involved. There are issues in this regard of which we all need to be aware. We will take up the point on giving information to the Houses, including this committee. The information would be very useful in Members' clinics.

Deputy Olwyn Enright

Many new housing developments, particularly those under the housing associations, having community centres. Is the material distributed to these? Centres where people drop in and which hold various classes are ideal locations for the information. It is amazing we have never seen it.

Ms Margaret Dromey

It is amazing because the little information pack is very widely circulated. It was fronted by the Crisis Pregnancy Agency, which also did a lot of work on dissemination. On our mailing list, there are at least 4,000 workers or centres that we mail regularly. The Deputy raised a very good point, that is, that we need to ensure the information is distributed even more widely.

I will return to the question of lone parents, about which we are all concerned, and the question of whether the current system discourages the formation of two-parent families. For some it is a huge disincentive and, for others, it may not be. Of the women who give birth in a year, 12,000 are not living with the father, in marriage or cohabitation. If we do not ask them why they are not cohabiting and why they are choosing to be lone parents, we will not know the answer. I suspect they are like many other young people in that they are dating, having relationships and eventually cohabiting or getting married. I am not so sure all the 12,000 women who have children in any year become long-term recipients of the one-parent family payment.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

According to anecdotal evidence, many are cohabiting.

Ms Margaret Dromey

Officially, no. Any system that encourages it must be tackled. We certainly would not encourage couples to defraud the system. However, in broader society, there is much fraud and perhaps the group in question is no different from any other.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

The system encourages fraud.

Ms Margaret Dromey

Absolutely.

Deputy Olwyn Enright

It does not leave people with an alternative.

Ms Margaret Dromey

It does not.

Ms Margot Doherty

With regard to the question on where information is found, there is a bibliography on the back of our submission. All our statistics are from the Central Statistics Office, the Department of Social and Family Affairs and the ESRI.

Ms Margaret Dromey

I return to a matter raised by Deputies Byrne and Shortall. The link between poverty, low educational attainment and lone parenthood is striking. We need to reduce the numbers who parent alone. We must look at education systems and encourage and support. Our system does not support young people in education. If one is pregnant, there are factors such as rent allowance and other disincentives to remaining in education. The challenge for the committee is to see what it can do to encourage and support a system that will keep people in education or help them to return to it.

The proposal made by the Minister that when a child reaches the age of 13 years, the parent should come off lone parent allowance and receive jobseeker's allowance probably represents a very good start. Having a baby and receiving a payment, for perhaps 22 years without the parent ever engaging with the labour market, is probably not a good idea for either the woman or her child. I suspect a small number will remain in this position for a long time but this group needs to be helped and supported to move from the allowance into education or employment. The move is towards a situation where when a child reaches the age of 13 years, or ten years, the mother will be encouraged and supported to return to education and training. One hopes that by the time the child reaches the age of 13 years the mother will be ready to go to work. This will be difficult and challenging for many parents. It is all very well to do this during the school year when a child aged 13 years is in secondary school but in summer time, during the three months of the school holidays, what is one to do with one's child? We must look at these challenges.

Ms Margot Doherty

I wish to make two points, one of which relates to social welfare payments. Deputy Shortall asked at what age would the requirement to work feature in the one parent family payment. I understand the Minister is thinking of introducing it next year, first for families with children aged 18 years, for 17 year olds the following year and then for 16 year olds. By 2016 anybody with a 13 year old child would come off the one parent family payment and receive an unemployment payment. The plan is to taper it gradually, which is a very good idea.

In response to Deputy Byrne, Treoir co-ordinates the teen parents support programme, which is a very good one. It is based in 11 sites but the aim is to have it available to every young parent in the country. In better economic times that would have come about but we are helping about 1,500 teen parents. It is a terrific programme which one hopes will be gradually inserted in areas of high demand. One hopes also the higher the demand the more quickly it will come on stream, as it is an excellent programme which addresses the isolation of young parents, which can be striking. The programme encourages them to stay in or return to education. If they want to be full-time parents for a certain period, they can do this and will be assisted to return to education at a later stage. There are answers but there is not enough money available to provide an answer for everyone.

Chairman

I thank the delegates from Treoir for sharing with the committee their experiences and valuable insights. The presentation will inform the committee in its deliberations on the subject.

The joint committee adjourned at 12.05 p.m. until 11 a.m. on Wednesday, 31 March 2010.