THE final conclusions of the expert group set up to study the integration of the tax and social welfare systems are expected to be available shortly.

The Minister for Social Welfare, Mr De Rossa, said one of the reforms in this year's Social Welfare Bill would implement a recommendation from the group to simplify complex arrangements and make it attractive for people to take up part time employment by enabling them to retain more of their social welfare payment.

The change would be old greatest benefit to welfare recipients who secured relatively low paid part time or casual work. It might give them the type of employment they were seeking or provide them with work experience that would enable them to move to higher grade employment later.

The Bill, which would implement the social welfare improvements announced in the Budget contained a far reaching initiative in regard to payments made to one parent families. The new payment, which would come into effect from the beginning of 1997, would replace and enhance the existing lone parent's allowance and deserted wife's benefit.

It would remove once and for all the requirement to prove "desertion" which was seem as difficult or degrading for women. "It will also ensure equality of treatment for men and women in the area of toned parenthood, the denial of which has been increasingly seen as unfair to men who nowadays more often raise children alone."

The Fianna Fail spokesman, Mr Joe Walsh, said social welfare now accounted for nearly a third of Government spending, with about 1.5 million people receiving payments. There were major challenges ahead - how to turn economic growth over the next decade into employment; plan for our increasingly ageing population; and how to cater for the changing role and status of women.

"Given the current excessive levels of unemployment, every Government Department, particularly the Department of Social Welfare, has a political and moral responsibility to do everything in its power to help people into work. The cancer of long term unemployment cannot be allowed to continue.

He welcomed the changes proposed by the Minister in regard to taking up part time work and the cuts in PRSI payments, but the Government's overall response to unemployment was a farce.

There were three different bodies - the Department of Social Welfare, FAS and the local employment service - which were supposed to provide information directly to people looking for work. How could any employer find a way around "this incoherent maze of quangos"? Instead of adopting a coherent plan the Government was relying on old structures that obviously needed modification.

Ms Mairin Quill (PD, Cork North Central) said it was not good enough that a Department which spent so much should be debated just once a year in the Dail. There should be a comprehensive debate on the social welfare system and the Minister should outline how he sees it developing.

Regarding lone parents, she said careful reading of the legislation would show the Minister was using a sprat to catch a salmon. He was providing a more generous means test to one parent families but it appeared there would be savings on the deserted wife's benefit scheme. At present benefits were paid because of the recipient's insurance or that of the husband and there was no limit on earnings. It now appeared a ceiling of £12,000 was being placed on income. The Minister should say whether some people would lose their deserted wife's benefit.

Debate on the Bill continues.