Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 14 May 2013
353. Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin asked the Minister for Social Protection the steps she has taken, or intends to take, to address the fact, now confirmed in her Department's report, that households with children, and in particular, lone parent families, have been the worst affected by the measures contained in budget 2013; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [21768/13]
View answerIn 2013, my Department will spend over €2.8 billion on supports to families and children.
The Social Impact Assessment of Budget 2013, which was published this March, examines the impact of the main welfare and direct tax measures in Budget 2013.
Social impact assessment is an evidence-based methodology which uses a tax/welfare simulation model developed by the Economic and Social Research Institute to estimate the likely distributive effects of budgetary measures on income and social inequalities.
The main finding of the assessment is that Budget 2013 led to no significant change in the at-risk-of-poverty rate, including the at-risk-of-poverty rate for children, and that the strong poverty reduction performance of social transfers was maintained. To illustrate this, in 2011, social transfers reduced the at-risk-of-poverty rate for children from 51 per cent to 16 per cent; this is amongst the best performance of all member states in the EU.
The assessment finds that households with children lost around 1 per cent of disposable income, slightly more than the average loss of 0.8 per cent. This reflected the reduction in child income supports (child benefit and back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance) and the impact of the reduction of the earnings threshold for recipients of the One Parent Family Payment (OFP) from €130 per week to €110 per week (which was announced in a previous Budget).
However, the analysis did not, for technical reasons, take into account the additional €20.75 million which was provided for services for low income children, including an Area Based Approach to Child Poverty, school meals and after-school child care.
In this regard, Budget 2013 contained a measure to provide 6,000 additional after-school child care places to people who have been long-term unemployed or were former recipients of OFP and who have received a job offer or significantly increased their part-time hours. The provision of good quality, affordable child care is one of the most important ways in which we help people get back to work. In the first phase, up to 500 child care places are being made available in seven local offices: Tralee, Mullingar, Dundalk, Cork City, Finglas, King’s Inn and Limerick City (Dominic Street).
The Government’s priority in Budget 2013 was to maintain the basic weekly rates of social welfare income support payments including the personal weekly rate OFP and this was achieved. In addition, there were no changes to the family income supplement, fuel allowance and the level of weekly increase payable for qualified children.
