Brennan unveils proposals to help lone parents

The Government has published a series of radical proposals designed to tackle the problems of social exclusion and poverty faced by many of the State's 80,000 lone parents and their 130,000 children.

Launching the discussion paper 'Proposals for Supporting Lone Parents' today, Minister for Social and Family Affairs Séamus Brennan said the Government had a duty to protect Irish children from poverty.

Lone parents and their children are over four times as likely than any other social group to be living in poverty. Figures for 2004 show over 30 per cent of them were in consistent poverty, while a further 22 per cent of children were at risk of poverty.

Nearly two-thirds of lone parents have one child and a quarter have two children. Latest figures show some 44 per cent of all women's first births are outside marriage.

The State pays out around €1.35 billion each year to lone parent families. Mr Brennan said today that long-term welfare dependency was not in the best interests of lone parents, their children or society in general.

"A key focus for me has been to ensure that the social welfare system meets the needs of all of our citizen.

"It must be a system that not only delivers income support, which of course is crucial to those concerned, but also a system that provides supports and encouragement, incentives and activation measures designed to people's needs and abilities so as to ensure that the personal potential and contribution to society of no individual is overlooked or neglected," Mr Brennan said.

Among the recommendations in the report are the abolition of the current One-Parent Family Payment and the introduction of a new means-tested parental allowance for low income families. Other proposals are that lone parents be encouraged to avail of education and training.

There are also proposals to allow cohabitation, removing the disincentive for parents to either form relationships or to declare them because it would affect their benefits. This was a ridiculous scenario, the minister said.

"What kind of social policy says a father of a child can't stay with a child?" asked Mr Brennan at today's launch. "I have inspectors calling to doors checking that the father is not in a house. I can't get my head around that.

"Lone parent children are three times what the poverty rates are in the rest of society. We have to deal with that."

The proposals also allows those in receipt of parental allowance to earn up to €120 a week without it affecting their allowances. The upper income limit will be increased to €400 per week from the current €375.

Mr Brennan said the reforms were serious and complex. He said the findings of planned consultations will be presented to Cabinet and, if approved, would be complemented by the €500 million being spent on childcare provision over the next five years.

The national federation for young parents and their children, Treoir,  welcomed the discussion document. The group said it would engage in dialogue with the minister and his civil servants to ensure the final recommendations "truly address the severe poverty experienced by lone parents, that they are fair, equitable and reflect adequately the diversity of families in the Ireland of 2006."