Hundreds of single parents stand to lose up to €60 a week in benefits because of a €10 pay rise from FÁS.
As a result of the pay increase, participants in a FÁS jobs programme face disqualification from the one-parent family payment (OPFP) scheme operated by the Department of Social and Family Affairs.
The anomaly has been criticised by the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU), which says several hundred single parents have been left worse off.
A department spokeswoman, however, said there were no immediate plans to review the situation which affects single parents who returned to the workforce under the FÁS job-initiative programme.
Participants must be over 35, live in a designated partnership area and have been unemployed for at least five years.
Most participants work in the community and voluntary sector and, up to the end of last year, they were paid €287 a week by FÁS. This was increased by €10 last month.
Some of those benefiting from the scheme are single parents in receipt of OPFP, a means-tested payment which is reduced when other income is available.
The maximum income an OPFP recipient is allowed to earn is €293 a week, so the €10 pay rise from FÁS has put some single parents in the job-initiative scheme above that threshold.
A department spokeswoman said yesterday that a single parent receiving an income of €287 a week would qualify for an OPFP of €59.80 a week, plus €19.30 per child.
Once a single parent's external income went above €293, however, they would lose half the €59.80 in the first year, and the entire payment after 12 months, she confirmed.
Ms June Tinsley, the INOU's policy officer, said the cut had already come into effect for single parents. The INOU was aware of one job programme in Tallaght, for example, where 13 participants were affected.
"The €10 pay increase has left them worse off, thereby increasing their risk of exposure to poverty and social exclusion," she said. It was "yet another example" of "anomalies in the social welfare system that need to be addressed".
In addition to the loss of benefits, those affected would also have to pay increased PRSI payments, she said.
The department spokeswoman, however, said €293 a week was "quite a substantial amount" that people could earn before losing their OPFP entitlement.
The number of people affected by the anomaly could not be established yesterday, but there are 2,594 participants in the job-initiative programme, and the latest breakdown available - for the year 2000 - showed that 13 per cent of these were single parents in receipt of OPFP. This suggests some 300 lone parents will lose income.
