The main business of my Department is the provision of income support, including insurance based payments, social assistance payments, associated secondary benefits and universal schemes such as child benefit. My Department is also responsible for the provision, either directly or indirectly through its agencies, of other services designed to support individuals and families in participating actively in society.
Among the main goals of my Department is one to support families and to strive to attain better outcomes in tackling poverty. I believe that these twin aims are best achieved by improved employment opportunities and decreasing barriers to work.
While many of the income support payments are designed to provide a replacement income in the event of a particular contingency arising, a number of programmes and schemes are directly focused on families and benefit families at risk of poverty. Examples of these include the one parent family payment, family income supplement and the back to school clothing and footwear allowance.
Research has shown that lone parent families tend to be at greater than average risk of poverty. One of the key tasks in the "Ending Child Poverty" initiative under Sustaining Progress is to address obstacles to employment for lone parents. In March of this year I launched a major Government discussion paper "Proposals for Supporting Lone Parents" which addresses the social exclusion and risk of poverty faced by many such families and their children.
The report puts forward proposals for reform of the income support system for all parents on a low income. It proposes the expanded availability and range of education and training opportunities for lone parents, the extension of the National Employment Action Plan to focus on lone parents, focused provision of childcare, improved information services for lone parents and the introduction of a new social assistance payment for all low income families with young children. Work on developing these proposals further is underway. Once I am convinced that we have reached conclusions that are equitable, with a fully workable implementation strategy, it is my intention to bring forward proposals for legislation to implement the new income support structures.
In addition, cash support is provided by way of weekly payments to families, including lone parent families, at work on low pay, through the family income supplement scheme. This scheme is designed to provide income support for employees on low earnings, with families, and thereby preserve the incentive to remain in employment in circumstances where the employee might be only marginally better off than if s/he were claiming other social welfare payments.
A number of improvements have been made to the scheme over the years, including the assessment of entitlement on the basis of net rather than gross income and progressive increases in the income thresholds, making it easier for lower income households to qualify for payment.
There are currently 20,116 people in receipt of a weekly FIS payment. This is an increase of 2,628 or 15% since the beginning of this year. The average value of each FIS payment is over €113 per week.
The back to school clothing and footwear allowance scheme is provided to qualifying persons to help towards the cost of children's school uniforms and footwear. The scheme operates from the beginning of June to the end of September each year. The rate of allowance in 2006 was €120 in respect of qualified children aged from 2 to 11 years, or €190 in respect of qualified children aged from 12 to 22 years.
The Government's approach to supporting families at risk of poverty will be further enhanced through the forthcoming National Action Plan for Social Inclusion, due to be launched in the new year, which will outline in more detail the Government's strategies to combating poverty and social exclusion. The plan is being prepared in tandem with and will complement the forthcoming National Development Plan 2007-2013, which will contain a specific chapter on social inclusion.