State policy ‘makes life more difficult’ for lone parents

MORE lone parents should be allowed access to the Rental Accommodation Scheme, while Fás needs to drop its “stupid” start times for courses, an Oireachtas committee heard yesterday.

One Family and OPEN, two groups which offer support to lone parents, outlined financial disincentives to marriage before the Oireachtas Committee on Social and Family Affairs and claimed that current government policy was making life more difficult for parents raising children on their own.

Both One Family and OPEN said the changes to the rent supplement system was key to lone parents falling into the poverty trap, aligned to a lack of affordable childcare.