‘Fraudster mums’ are a tiny fraction of all claimants

YOU published a letter from Cathal Garvey (April 30), in relation to a report headlined ‘Crackdown denied as lone parent payments cut’ (April 14).

I was quoted in that report and would like to contextualise my remarks, as Mr Garvey seems to have misunderstood the situation somewhat.

The Department of Social and Family Affairs is in the process of ‘localising’ administration of the one-parent family payment (OFP), ie, administering the scheme through its network of local social welfare offices rather than — as currently remains the case for a majority of OFP claimants — centrally from the Pensions Office in Sligo.

As part of this process, during 2007 approximately 30,000 questionnaires were issued to OFP claimants so as to check the accuracy of the department’s records before administration was transferred to the relevant local office.

Claimants were asked to indicate any relevant changes in their circumstances, for example, earnings, number of children, changes in relationship status, etc. As a result of this process, approximately 15,000 claims were reduced or, in a very small number of cases, terminated. The department has confirmed that in the vast majority of cases, these adjustments resulted from increases in earnings and that adjustments were very minor.

A case in point is lone parents who participate in the community employment (CE) scheme. Wages paid to CE participants were increased in the last budget.

As CE wages are paid by the Government, many are likely to have assumed there was no need to tell one government department about changes implemented by a different government department.

In addition, it should be noted that questionnaires were sent to all OFP claimants in the relevant areas, including those who had already alerted the department to changes in their circumstances, ie, some adjustments to payments would have taken place regardless of whether or not the department had issued the questionnaire.

Further, it should be noted that in approximately 4,000 cases the level of payment was actually increased, as claimants hadn’t notified the department of a fall in their income, or hadn’t applied for payments to which they were entitled.

The Department of Social and Family Affairs would, I believe, concede that centralised administration of basic weekly social welfare payments is far from best practice.

Clients can be left without any contact from the department for many years and there is no face-to-face communication. Localisation aims to address these deficits.

Therefore it would be a mistake to categorise these 15,000 lone parents as “fraudster mums” — from more than 15,000 questionnaires issued, fewer than 20 cases were referred to be considered for prosecution for alleged fraud

We recognise that parenting is a very challenging, albeit rewarding, task. Parenting in the wake of relationship breakdown, where parents live apart, can be particularly challenging. We are clear that the welfare of children — surely the most important consideration of all — is not served by demonising either the resident or non-resident parent.

Camille Loftus

Head of Policy and Research

OPEN (the national network of lone parent support groups)

7 Red Cow Lane

Smithfield

Dublin 7