Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 26 September 2018
59. Deputy Eamon Ryan asked the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if the reduction of eligibility for the single-parent allowance from 18 to seven years will be reversed; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39078/18]
View answerWe are told that our economy is growing at a rate of 9%, that we are back to full employment and that our budget is back in balance. This is the time, therefore, to reverse what was the worst cut during the period of difficulty and crisis, namely the cut to the single parent's allowance from 18 to seven years, which was introduced four or five years ago. I am interested to know whether the Minister will do that and what policy approach she will take in that regard. Those parents and families are 230% worse off than the average. Their children are growing up in poverty. Lone parents make up two thirds of the homelessness figures and they are usually women. Will the Minister support them and will she reverse the policy? It needs to change now.
My Department will spend an estimated €502 million on the one-parent family payment scheme in 2018. The scheme currently supports more than 39,000 recipients and their almost 73,000 children and has played an important role in providing income support to lone parents since its introduction in 1997. However, income support for lone parents was passive in nature in the past and involved limited engagement by the State employment services with recipients. Research shows that being at work reduces the at-risk-of-poverty rate for lone parents by 75% compared to those who do not work. This highlights that the best way to tackle poverty among lone parents is to assist them into education and then employment or directly into employment. Access to activation supports is vital to achieve this objective and it is, therefore, imperative that the Department continues to engage with lone parents to assist them into good careers.
The unconditional nature of the payment, which was unique in Europe, coupled with its long duration, has, over time, contributed to long-term social welfare dependency and, as the Deputy rightly describes, associated poverty among many lone parents and their children. Reforms to the scheme were introduced to address the issue of poverty specifically. The reforms provide enhanced access to the Department's Intreo service for lone parents once the youngest child turns seven years of age. Access to the Department's range of education and employment support services is essential to facilitate lone parents to progress into sustainable employment and financial independence. Budget 2018 contained a number of measures to support lone parents, including working lone parents. For example, a lone parent on the jobseeker's transitional payment working 15 hours at the national minimum wage experienced an increase in his or her overall income of almost €1,000 per annum. The budget also increased the disregard and the qualified-child payment which changes saw some people being moved out of consistent poverty. While I agree with the Deputy that we have a long way to go, it is only by intensifying the supports we give to those 39,000 lone parents that we will achieve fruitful careers and financial independence for them for the rest of their lives.
I am honestly shocked that the words I hear the Minister speak today are the exact same words Senator Kevin Humphreys used when, as Minister of State with responsibility in this area, he introduced the cuts in a lone-parent's allowance when a child reached seven years. The facts belie the policy approach the Minister and her Department seem to be taking. I understand that the Indecon report, which reviewed the effect of the cuts, showed a 50% increase in poverty for those families. I disagree fundamentally with the basic premise that parenting is not work, does not count, is passive and does not matter, and that one has to get people into the workplace to tackle social inclusion. If the Taoiseach said after the recent abortion referendum that the key thing we had to do now was make Ireland the best place in the world to raise all families, what is being done with these most vulnerable families is wrong. It is an opinion which is formed on an economic analysis that caring does not matter and that lone parents are a problem who must be got out of the home and into the workplace at all costs. It is a fundamentally wrong approach and a tragedy that it is applying now, whatever about it applying in 2012 when we had no money. It is ideological and that is why I have a concern. Even at a time of full employment and increasing income, the Government wants to stop supporting parents for an ideological reason.
I do not have an ideological problem with any parent in this country and I ask the Deputy to be mindful of the comments or accusations he throws around. I have done nothing since I was appointed to this position in June 2017 but advocate as strongly and loudly as I can to destigmatise the issues around lone parenting and to support lone parents. I have made commitments to ensure I will continue to do that. The Deputy has conflated the cuts that were made in 2012 and 2013 with the changes in policy. I reiterate that the Indecon review on the one-parent family payment changes, which was worth every single penny we were charged, found that those changes resulted in an increase in employment among lone parents and a decrease in welfare dependency. I am the first person to stand here and admit to the Deputy that the cuts were harsh, targeted and unfair. That is why I am unravelling them. However, I ask him to please not conflate those cuts with introduction of a new policy that provides educational and activation supports with a pathway to employment. That policy has had a positive outcome, as borne out in the Indecon report. The cuts were harsh and they will be unravelled but the Deputy should not conflate one policy with a cut.
There is nothing personal in this. It is purely the policy that concerns me. We should not discriminate between one parent and another and, in particular, we should not discriminate against lone parents who are in most in need of the State's support. We should not say to them that the way to help them is always through the paid workforce.
It is right for us to leave the parents with the choice for that and, for those parents who do not enter the workforce, to provide the supports we gave as early as the 1970s that fundamentally transformed the experience of being a lone parent in this country. I believe the policy being applied by the Minister is having a deleterious effect on lone parents and their families. All the evidence in the homeless statistics show the poverty figures and the levels of consistent poverty among children of lone parents. This is not a huge budget issue with regard to numbers: I understand that the restoration might cost €40 million or €50 million. It is the policy of the Department; it is not the Minister's policy because it was also there with the Labour Ministers before. I fundamentally disagree with it and I ask the Minister to reconsider whether forcing people into the paid workforce is the best way of providing social protection.
If I am hearing the Deputy right, his ideology is that he is happy that lone parents are dependent on welfare-----
No. That is not true.
-----and that they would be financially dependent for the rest of their lives. I am sorry but that is not an ideology I subscribe to, even the tiniest bit. We want to provide financial independence for this group of people who are living in consistent poverty that rates far higher than the rest of the population, as are their children. If they want to stay at home then that is a choice but it will not improve their living standards. In the main these women want to work. I do not know how many of these people the Deputy knows-----
I know several, Minister.
-----but they do not want to stay at home and be financially dependent on the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection.
I know several who will be deeply disadvantaged with this cut.
They want to be independent and have fulfilling lives. They want to have active and participative lives. That is what we are going to do. We will ensure that whatever resources and services they need in order to fulfil their ambition, which is having a full life, will be available from my Department and from the Department of Education and Skills.
