Dan Boyle
Ceist:78 Mr. Boyle asked the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the reason her Department has chosen to engage in a review of income support payments to single parent families. [24292/03]
Written Answers. - Social Welfare Benefits.
Ireland currently has among the highest proportions of lone-parent families within the EU, with over 11% of households headed by a lone parent. Up to 45% are in employment, a low percentage compared to other countries. For most lone parents, the one parent family payment is their main or only source of income. The duration of nearly half of these payments is for more than eight years. Long-term dependency on social welfare payments increases the likelihood of being at risk of poverty and in 2001, some 42.9% of lone parents in Ireland had a level of income which put them in the "at risk of poverty" category. The children of lone parents also comprise a high proportion of children at risk of poverty.
As employment is the best way out of poverty, lone parents face a heightened poverty risk, as they have to be the main breadwinner and main carer at the same time. One of the objectives of the one-parent family payment is to facilitate lone parents in obtaining employment as an alternative to welfare dependency, while at the same time enabling them to remain in the home if they so wish.
I have given a commitment in my Department's statement of strategy to review the income support arrangements for lone parents. The main purpose of the review is to establish the extent to which the scheme may be acting as a disincentive to recipients taking up employment, and to making the transition to full-time employment, greater self sufficiency and a better overall standard of living for them and their children.
Account will be taken in the review of the research carried out to date, not least the review of the one parent family payment, published by my own Department in September 2000, an OECD study in which Ireland participated, due to be launched on 4 November next, and the policies and programmes pursued in other EU countries as set out in their recently published national action plans on social inclusion. The process will also include my Department and other relevant Departments participating with the Crisis Preg nancy Agency on a committee, due to commence early next year, which will examine all the issues surrounding parenting alone, including income support and employment. The review process will also contribute to the special initiative on ending child poverty under Sustaining Progress.
Question No. 79 answered with Question No. 77.