Call over family income supports

The Department of Social and Family Affairs must make a “definite call” on the age at which certain family income supports will cease, an Oireachtas committee has heard.

The remark by Frances Byrne of Open, which represents lone parents’ groups, follows Minister Mary Hanafin’s recent comment that the one-parent family payment should be phased out when children reach 13.

“The Department will need to make a definitive call about the precise age when such family income supports would cease,” Ms Byrne told the Oireachtas committee on social and family affairs.

She said this would reassure parents and allow them to undertake any necessary preparations.

Ms Byrne also called on FAS to reform the delivery of its training courses.

“It remains something of a mystery why their best courses begin at 8.30am when parents are en route to school,” she said.

However, she said that, “in spite of the barriers”, lone parents were moving into the workplace in increasing numbers.

“Ireland can and should strive to be a country where child poverty is confined to history.”

One Family spokeswoman Candy Murphy agreed there were barriers to lone parents moving off social welfare benefits and into paid employment. Among the barriers she identified were access to childcare, housing, education and training.

“Motivation to work is not the issue and that’s a very important point we believe,” she said.

However, Ms Murphy stressed she would be opposed to the “compulsory labour market participation” of lone parents, “especially in this labour market”.

She claimed the relationship between welfare systems and family structure remained unresearched in Ireland and this situation needed to be addressed before any policy changes were considered.

Independent Senator Ronan Mullen said lone parents should be supported “absolutely and unconditionally”.

However, he said there was no need to “go into denial” about what worked best for children, adding that research pointed to a family headed by “two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage”.

He said: “I feel an obligation to say the State and society cannot be neutral on the question of what family forms are most desirable...one almost needs to be courageous in this day and age to say it.”

Labour TD Roisin Shortall said the tax and welfare system should be “neutral” in terms of how it affected “people’s life choices”. She added: “This is a very difficult nut to crack”.

Fianna Fail Senator Cyprian Brady focused on the role of grandparents and referred to what he described as the “working granny syndrome”, whereby grandmothers were “engaged fully in the rearing of children”.