Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 6 October 2016
8. Deputy Gino Kenny asked the Minister for Social Protection if he is still of the view that the one-parent family payment was not cut by the previous Government; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28732/16]
View answerDoes the Minister for Social Protection stand over his assertion that the one-parent family payment was not cut by the previous Government, and will he make a statement on the matter?
The predecessors to the previous Government introduced two cuts to the weekly rate of the one-parent family payment in budgets 2010 and 2011. When the previous Government took office in March 2011, there was a commitment in the programme for Government to maintain core weekly social welfare rates. This commitment has been maintained as the rate of the one-parent family payment has been maintained at €188 a week throughout the course of the Government. However, the previous Government reduced the income disregards that recipients of the one-parent family payment can receive when they are working. This resulted in a reduction in payments for some lone parents who were working while receiving benefits. The reforms also changed the conditionality around the one-parent family payment, including lowering the maximum age threshold for the youngest child to seven years of age.
The purpose of reducing the age thresholds of the one-parent family payment is for my Department to engage with lone parents with the aim of providing them with enhanced access to the wide range of education, training and employment supports that are available. Now that the economy is back on track, due to the policy decisions made in recent years, there will be no need for further cuts to welfare payments. Unemployment is down by almost half, incomes are rising again and the public finances are back in order, demonstrating that we followed the right course politically as a country.
The 2016 budget improved the means test and increased the earnings disregards for lone parents in receipt of the jobseeker’s transitional payment. Other measures which benefited lone parents included the €5 increase in child benefit, an increase in fuel allowance of €2.50 per week - the fuel season began last week - and a 75% Christmas bonus. I am strongly of the view that welfare should be seen as a second chance or safety net. For this reason, any future reforms affecting lone parents will concentrate on making child care more affordable and work more attractive and reducing barriers to education rather than more welfare.
The plan is probably the most ill-thought-out and ill-funded policy of the past four or five years. There are more anomalies and holes in it than any other social welfare policy of the past five years. It has compounded poverty among lone parents. While the Minister is right that it has not touched the core value of the one-parent family payment, it has touched the income of a parent going out to work. Will the Minister comment on it? The income of a parent in receipt of the one-parent family payment has been dramatically cut. I will give the Minister the details after he has responded to me.
I acknowledge that the disregards for some lone parents' payments have decreased. If the Deputy is referring to the "Morning Ireland" interview, I have no difficulty in accepting that what I said, while it was not untrue, was not the full facts.
That is untrue in any man's terms.
I had in mind a lone parent who was in receipt of the basic payment, not also working and receiving benefits. I will give the Deputy the figures, if he is interested. As a result of the changes made in 2015, 47% of lone parents, 12,000, experienced no change in their incomes; 12%, 3,000, saw an increase in their incomes; and 19%, approximately 4,900, suffered an income loss, as did 5,700 family income supplement, FIS, recipients. I hope the Deputy will acknowledge in his reply that some people's incomes increased.
I am happy to acknowledge that, at least under those reforms, approximately 59% had no change or were better off and 41% lost income. The changes were not perfect, but those that we make in future in respect of lone parents will be to assist them with the cost of child care and helping them into education, not to make it easier to get more welfare, which is not the right way to go.
The Government is taking money off them.
I will list the main points in terms of income. The qualifying age was cut to seven years and income disregard was cut from €147 to €90, which meant a loss of €28.80 per week for working parents. According to the most significant stat, if a lone parent worked 20 hours for the minimum wage in 2015 and got FIS, he or she would have been down 17% compared with what he or she would have been getting in 2011. If a lone parent worked 28 hours, he or she would have been down 14%. If a lone parent worked 35 hours, he or she would have been down 11%. This is discriminatory. This is what puts lone parents back in the poverty trap. The Government is discriminating against people who want to go out and work. This is a political attack on lone parents by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the troika.
The Deputy has gone over time.
We can cite lots of statistics to each other. If the Deputy had been here for the-----
These are facts.
Please, let the Minister continue.
I will give the Deputy some other facts.
No, these are facts.
Will the Deputy please allow the Minister to continue?
It is remarkable how the Deputies asking questions during Question Time have no interest in hearing the answers-----
I will listen.
-----because they might have to tolerate a contrary-----
I am listening.
-----opinion or hearing some other facts.
Take off the rose-tinted glasses and look at the harsh reality.
Please, allow the Minister to reply.
These are the facts from the quarterly national household survey of the second quarter of 2016. In the year commencing 1 July 2015 to 30 June 2016, the number of lone parent families in employment increased significantly by 3.6% to 56.4%. For those whose youngest children were aged between six and 11 years, the percentage in employment increased by 7.5% to 57.2%. More lone parents are getting into the workplace. The best way out of poverty is by getting more people back to work. If we are going to make any change under my watch, it will be to assist more lone parents in returning to work, with child care costs and in breaking some of the barriers to education.
Where is the child care?
What the Deputy seems to want to revert to is a system of more welfare. That is not right.
No. The Minister is an ideologue.
We have had adequate time to deal with-----
And the Deputy is not? Has he no ideology at all?
I have an ideology. I have a great ideology.
Thank you, Minister, Deputy.
Should I take that as a compliment, then?
