Government plans to reform welfare benefits for lone parents are expected to be enacted before the end of the year, it emerged yesterday.
Current proposals would see the Government replacing the lone parent's allowance with a new time-limited allowance for low-income families with young children.
After a child reaches five years of age, parents will be required to seek training or a job, and the allowance could cease after the youngest child reaches a certain age, such as eight years of age.
The move would also remove the controversial cohabitation rule which encourages those on lone parent's allowance to live alone.
Speaking at a forum with lone parent groups at Farmleigh House yesterday, Minister for Social and Family Affairs Séamus Brennan said the reforms would replace "passive" welfare payments and poverty traps with more "active" supports to help an estimated 80,000 lone parents take up training, education or employment opportunities.
While the lone parent's allowance - known officially as the one-parent family payment - costs the State €800 million a year, Mr Brennan said the proposals were not about achieving savings for the Exchequer. The reforms, he said, would cost more in the short term.
"Movement into employment is the best way out of poverty and it is a transition that can transform lives, but is not always smooth. Obstacles can emerge along the way. The reforms I am working towards are to tackle these obstacles and replace them with incentives and activation measures designed to meet people's needs and abilities."
The plans received a mixed response from lone parent groups. While they welcomed plans to reform the benefit system, many expressed concern on a range of issues including the lack of access to affordable childcare, training or education support.
Open, a national network of lone parent groups, said it feared that the withdrawal of the new parental allowance could create a new poverty trap.
"For proposals designed to tackle poverty by increasing labour market participation, these poverty traps will mostly affect lone parents who are doing exactly what society wants of them - working for a living," said Frances Byrne of Open.
One Family, the lone parent group formerly known as Cherish, said the planned reforms should be phased in over 10 years due to the current lack of supports available.
Candy Murphy, One Family's policy manager, also questioned whether it was right to move to a position where the option of parenting children over the age of eight at home was denied to many families.
Treoir, the National Federation for Unmarried Parents and their Children, also said the plans may be incompatible with the Constitution's provisions relating to the family.
The forum later heard, however, that the Attorney General had advised that he did not feel the planned reforms were unconstitutional.