Burton offers new hope to lone-parent families

The Government will not stop one-parent welfare payments once a child reaches the age of seven, unless a Scandinavian-style form of childcare is put in place.

Social Welfare Minister Joan Burton previously announced that for new applicants, from May 2012 the maximum age limit of the youngest child for receipt of the one-parent family social welfare payment would reduce to 12 and that it would reduce further to age 10 in 2013 and to age seven in 2014.

The rationale was that “long-term welfare dependency and passive income support were not in the best interests of the person, their children or society” and that “the best route out of poverty and social exclusion is through paid employment”.