The payment rate for the scheme remains at €188 per week — with a further €29.80 per week for each additional qualified child. Until 2011, the OFP payment provided long-term income support to lone parents until children were aged 18, or 22 if in full-time education, without any requirement for them to engage in employment, education or training. Such long-term welfare dependency and passive income support to individuals of working age are not considered to be in the best interests of the recipient, of their children or of society.
Legislative changes were introduced to the OFP in the Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2010. These came into effect on 27 April, 2011, and reduced the maximum age limit of the youngest child for receipt of the OFP to 14. Further changes to the maximum age limit of the youngest child for receipt of the OFP were announced in Budget 2012. There are no changes for existing customers until 2013 — after which revised phasing-out arrangements will come into effect. The OFP will also see a reduction, over five years, of the earnings disregard for new and existing claimants.
Social assistance and the structure and delivery of payments have a key role to play in terms of incentive and disincentive effects with regard to commencing/returning to work, education or training and extending employment. While supports are available to those in receipt of the OFP payment, these are not currently provided in a structured or systematic way.
The changes to the OFP scheme put in place a model that:
prevents long-term dependence on social welfare support and facilitates financial independence among parents,
recognises parental choice with regard to the care of young children, but with the expectation that parents will not remain outside of the labour force indefinitely, and
includes an expectation of participation in education, training and employment initiatives, with the appropriate social welfare supports provided in this regard.
The changes also move the scheme towards a single means-tested social assistance payment for people of working age, which is the Department's strategy with regard to means-tested income support. This payment will end the categorisation of customers, including lone parents, into different payment types and will instead focus on the person and on their individual capacities. People can then be given, or be directed to, the supports and services that they need in order to return to, or take up, employment, training or educational opportunities.