Single parents with child over 13 years to lose state support in ‘cynical ploy’

SINGLE parents are set to lose vital state support as part of a “cynical” ploy by Government to cut the financial aid for any family whose youngest child is older than 13.

Details of the new Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill announced yesterday evening show that families of teenage children are facing even more hardship from April of next year.

Under the existing social welfare system, every lone parent family with a child under the age of 18 and a weekly household income of less than €425 is eligible to receive a monthly financial payment from the state.

The means-tested figure is currently available to applicants who are a single parent, step-parent, adoptive parent or legal guardian of a child under or younger than 18 or aged between 18 and 22 and in full-time education.

However, under new measures proposed by Minister for Social Protection, Éamon Ó Cuív, this system is set to be scrapped from April 2011, with the age bracket slashed to include only families whose youngest child is aged 13 or younger.

The minister has defended the Bill, which will be put before the Dáil and Seanad in June and July, as a necessary step towards ensuring the state does not pay unneeded financial aid to members of the public.

However, criticising the plan as a “cynical” ploy which fails to take account of the daily realities of people in financial hardship, Fine Gael social and family affairs spokesperson, Olwyn Enright, said the plan will force the least well-off in society to pay for other individuals’ mistakes.

“The decision to cut the payment is harsh and, damningly for the Government, is not backed up by a clear plan.

“It is without any plan to facilitate this group into education and employment, and Minister Ó Cuív is ignoring the fact that over 80% of one parent families already engage in education, training or work,” she said.

Highlighting what she believed was a deliberate attempt to bury the information, the opposition TD added: “I must note the cynical political move by Fianna Fáil in releasing this information so late on a Friday evening.”

Among the other details of the proposed bill are plans to disqualify any individual from receiving the jobseeker’s allowance if they refuse an offer of “suitable employment”, and to reduce the payment if they refuse to participate in training courses.