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One Family Payment changes printable version

03 Jul 2014: posted by the editor - Ireland

Today, 3 July, over 5,000 lone parent families lose their entitlement to One Family Payment but throughout the year a total of 9,000 families will lose entitlement. By July 2015, almost 60,000 families will lose One Family Payment when their youngest child turns seven.

SPARK (Single Parent Acting for the Rights of Kids) call out the promise made by Minister Burton on 18th April 2012 not to proceed with these 'reforms' unless there was "system of safe, affordable and accessible child care in place, similar to what is found in the Scandinavian countries to whose systems of social protection we aspire. That is why I am undertaking tonight that I will only proceed with the measures to reduce the upper age limit to seven years in the event that I get a credible and bankable commitment on the delivery of such a system of childcare by the time of this year's budget. If this is not forthcoming, the measure will not proceed".

There have been 800 after school childcare places provided (ASCC ) for all low income families and this is nowhere near the requirement needed to assist the 60,000 effected families. Minister Burton has cited the fact that lone parent families are the poorest group in Society as the reason for reform, however, the changes being introduced have a drastic financial impact on working lone parents and no financial impact on non working lone parents. We completely disagree that cutting working lone parents income is a way to improve the outcome for children in lone parent families.

There has been no additional training or employment supports being provided for lone parents, there is no childcare so we can avail of jobs bridge and we are actively hampered by our exclusion to the Jobs plus grant available to other job seekers. Without an affordable childcare system in place, many working lone parents will not be able to sustain these financial losses and will be forced out of the workforce. The Department of Social Protection has said that recipients affected can transfer to either Jobseekers payment, Carer's Allowance or Family Income Supplement payment to supplement any losses incurred. These all represent a huge financial loss and we totally reject Minister Burton's claims that this is to improve outcomes for our families. We call on Minister Burton to explain how she can proceed with these cuts to working lone parents, while ignoring her promise to provide an affordable childcare system. We ask if she becomes Labour Leader will she continue to ignore her promise.

Below please find details from Dept of Social Protection of financial impact on loss of One Family Payment. The weekly loss is shown in red and please note that as a result of changes t the Income Disregard, all working lone parents have already lost €27 per week or €1,404 per year since Minister Burton took over this portfolio.

Transferring to:

Job Seekers Allowance

Earnings

OFP

JA

Total OFP Income (Earnings + OFP)

Total JA Income (Earnings + JA)

Total Income Entitlement Loss

€0.00

€217.80

€217.80

€217.80

€217.80

€0.00

€100.00

€217.80

€193.80

€317.80

€293.80

€24.00

€200.00

€170.30

€133.80

€370.30

€333.80

€36.50

€300.00

€120.30

€73.80

€420.30

€373.80

€46.50

Family Income Supplement

Net Earnings

OFP

FIS

Total OFP Income (Earnings + OFP + FIS)

Total Income Entitlement Loss

Payment with OFP

€300.00

€120.30

€51.42

€471.72

Payment without OFP and with FIS re-rated

€300.00

€0.00

€123.60

€423.60

€48.12

Carers Allowance

OFP

CA

Total Income

Total Income Entitlement Loss

Payment with OFP

€217.80

€102.00 (half-rate)

€319.80

Payment without OFP

€0.00

€233.80

(full-rate

+ QCI)

€233.80

€86.00

Tags: One Family Payment, OFP, SPARK

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