PRESS STATEMENT FROM NWCI - Social Welfare Bill

Published: Saturday, May 29, 2010

"The proposed Social Welfare Bill will harm children and create a new generation of latch key kids," according to the CEO of the National women's Council, Susan McKay. "It will also force women to leave work and put their families at risk of poverty."
Lone parents who are able to find full time employment will face a difficult choice - pay for expensive childcare for their young teenage child after they come home from school, or take the risks associated with letting their children come home from school to wait without adult supervision until their parent finishes work.
The proposals in the Bill will have no impact on lone parents of children over 13 who are, and remain, unemployed. However, for One Parent Family Payment claimants who work part-time - estimated by the Department of Social Protection to constitute 70-80% of claimants - the change may have disastrous consequences, forcing many to leave employment.
Most lone parents are women, and many are concentrated in low paid work. They have already seen their hours cut due to the recession. This is going to force women to make impossible choices. Once again, the government is taking harsh measures which will hit the poorest in this society the hardest.
Telephone Camille Loftus for comment. 087 9790985

See notes below:
In 2006, when government introduced a discussion document on reforming the social welfare system in relation to parents, the introduction of a new payment, a Parental Allowance was proposed.
This would have established the same social welfare regime for all low income parents, recognising the contingency of parenting young children, and removing the 'ban' on cohabitation - a proposal which was intended to support the active involvement of both parents in the lives of their children, even when parents no longer live together.
The 2010 Social Welfare Bill has abandoned these positive aspirations.
This is because the rules governing employment are very different for claimants of One Parent Family Payment and Jobseekers Allowance.
Most employed lone parents try to work while their children are at school to avoid high Irish childcare costs - costs which remain among the highest in the world. Hence they work a small number of hours daily so as to be finished work by the time their children come home from school. This means that many lone parents are restricted to low paid jobs with few chances of progression - for example, working in retail or other low paid service jobs. The rules for the OFP only consider the amount of earnings a lone parent has, not how many days a week they work. In contrast, a person cannot claim Jobseekers Allowance if they are employed for more than 3 days a week, regardless of how little they earn.
To take a concrete example - a lone parent with one child who works in retail, earning the minimum wage, and working 20 hours a week, 4 hours a day over 5 days. Currently this lone parent is entitled to €218.30 One Parent Family Payment (OFP) and €68.82 Family Income Supplement (FIS), bringing their total net weekly income to €515.31. Under the proposed changes, this parent will not be entitled to claim Jobseekers Allowance (JA). They will be entitled to a higher FIS payment - €199.80 - but this will still leave them at a loss: their total net income will be €413.28, a weekly loss of €102.03.
However, many workers in the retail sector and other low paid service positions report that their hours have been cut during the recession, meaning that many no longer get enough hours to be entitled to a FIS payment[1]. For lone parent families in this situation, the proposals may force their withdrawal from employment entirely.
Currently, a lone parent working for 15 hours a week, over 5 days, and earning the NMW of €8.65 a week is not entitled to FIS, but they can claim OFP of €225.80, giving them a total net income of €410.74. Under the new proposals, this lone parent would not be entitled to any weekly social welfare payment, leaving them with a net income of €164.37 to survive on. This is more than €130 below the threshold at which the household is at risk of poverty, and represents a loss of €246.37 on the current provisions. It is simply not realistic to expect this parent to continue in employment: they will be force to leave their job.

[1] Family Income Supplement is a payment for families in low paid employment. To be eligible, the employee must work at least 19 hours a week. The supplement is paid at 60% of the difference between the employee's net income and income thresholds set for different family sizes by the Department of Social Protection.