Gregori Meakin highlights the attack on the living standards of single parent families and those who are organising to oppose it.
The One-Parent Family payment (OPF) was introduced in the Republic in 1997 as an income support for single parents. The legislation replaced the Lone Parent’s Allowance and Deserted Wife’s Benefit, but included an income disregard which allowed parents to earn up to €147 before their core payment was affected.
While reviews of the scheme were consistently concerned at the success rate of getting parents into work or training, practically every report written by Government agencies, NGOs, and economic and academic commentators identified the absence of affordable quality childcare as the most significant barrier to success.
In the lead up to the 2011 General Election, the Labour Party promised to protect core social welfare payments. However, the Government has proceeded to erode virtually every non-core support payment.
In December 2011, Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton, announced radical reforms to the OPF. In the Dáil she also promised the reforms would not go ahead until there was a bankable commitment to introducing a Scandinavian-style childcare system. No such childcare was put in place and she went ahead with the changes anyway.
Unlike previous austerity-led cuts these changes were implemented at policy level. This was explained as being an activation measure to prevent parents from ‘languishing’ on social protection payments for up to 22 years without the chance of working. There were two main facets to this policy: Firstly, a phased-in reduction of the income disregard to €90 for OFP recipients. The second, to transition parents off OFP once their youngest child reached the age of seven, phased in over a three-year period culminating in 30,000 parents transitioning on 2nd July this year.
Essentially this placed parents back in the pre-1997 position; but now with a rod and no carrot. In a climb-down, the Minister then introduced Jobseeker’s Transitional payment for parents with children aged between 7 and 13. This allowed parents more flexibility, but without the income disregard.
On budget day, December 2011, parents who would be hit hard by the cuts formed the Single Parents Acting for the Rights of Kids (SPARK). SPARK is a grassroots community group based on civic engagement, research, and campaigning aiming to reverse this policy. Its members are single parents who, drawing on experience of their own circumstances, recognised that not only would the cuts fail to activate parents into work but would make many already working worse off by between €30 to €80 per week – or more.
The SPARK community has consistently highlighted the devastating impact these changes are having. Single parents are one of the most socially marginalised and vulnerable groups in Ireland. They experienced a deprivation rate of 63.2% in 2013 and a consistent poverty rate of 23%, the highest of any group.
While Minister Burton tries to insist on the wisdom and kindness of her changes, SPARK continue to demonstrate the impact that the changes will actually have. Even while Minister Burton talks up the option of parents to ‘increase’ their hours to secure the over 19hrs Family Income Supplement, cited as the way out of poverty, she ignores the prevalence of zero-hour contract jobs, and the expectations that parents are in a position to negotiate with employers.
A lone parent with one child, working 20 hours per week on minimum wage will lose €50.72 (11% of their income) in July and this will rise to €80.52 (18% of their income) by 2017. This in addition to losses of €28 per week already lost through changes to income disregard from 2012.
SPARK have clearly shown that not only will parents be pushed out of their jobs rather than incentivised into jobs, but that the barrier to employment is the lack of an affordable childcare system.
The author is a researcher with Single Parents Acting for the Rights of Kids (SPARK).
