Cautious welcome by Lone Parents to Budget 2006
Budget fails to deliver choices to lone parents
For immediate release 7th of December 2005
OPEN (One Parent Exchange and Network) who represent 80 lone parent groups around the country gave a cautious welcome to today’s budget highlighting the increase of the upper earnings income for the One Parent Family Payment by €82 per week to a new limit of €375 as being particularly welcome. Frances Byrne, Director said “Things have hopefully begun to move in the right direction. We are aware that Minister Brennan is reviewing policies effecting lone parents by early next year and we hope this is an indication of things to come.”
Ms Byrne continued “While of course we welcome any increases in social welfare, in adding up the overall impact of this budget I genuinely feel that life will not change much for the almost 130,000 children who live in lone parent families, where their primary income is from social welfare. While €19.23 a week is a start, it will not go very far in contributing to childcare, allowing a lone parent to take up employment, education or training if they wish to do so. It must be remembered that one-parent families are three and a half times more likely to be in poverty and supporting these families to leave poverty will not happen with a childcare package that tries to appease everyone.”
Unfortunately the welfare to work transition in Ireland, as independent research published by OPEN in 2004 and further research published earlier this week illustrated, has developed in a piecemeal fashion. It has failed to take account of the changing profile of the unemployed here. It additionally requires those seeking employment to carry out highly complex calculations. As increases in social welfare have not been matched by increasing limits for those receiving supplementary support like a medical card, the transition to work outside the home may be an impossible goal. Again, the provision of universal childcare will not encourage participation in work if critical supports for health care and housing are adversely affected. Indeed the development of the welfare to work system contains important lessons for the design of an appropriate childcare infrastructure; perhaps the most important point is that one size does not fit all.
The increase of €40 per week in the Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance, which will benefit some 160,000 children, is welcome as finally we are seeing increases that reflect the reality of parents who struggle every September to get their children ready to return to school. (ends)
For further information please contact: Niamh O’Carroll on 087 628 6171 or Frances Byrne on 086 8143297
This page was updated on 8th December, 2005