Decision sought on lone-parent payment

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 was told yesterday.

The remark by Frances Byrne of Open, which represents lone parents’ groups, follows Minister for Social Affairs 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 Fás 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 – including access to childcare, housing, education and training – to lone parents moving off social welfare and into paid employment.

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

However, she said 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 had still not been researched in Ireland and this situation needed to be addressed before any policy changes were considered.

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

Labour TD Róisín Shortall said the tax and welfare system should be “neutral” in terms of how it affected “people’s life choices”.