Single mothers weren’t winners

Sir — In reply to the article ‘Many better off than in boom years but high earners hit’ (Business, Sunday Independent, October 15), I would like to highlight two omissions in the analysis of the ‘single mum on social welfare’ scenario that mask the true impact of austerity budgets on one-parent families.

Firstly, in calculating the income for the single mum on social welfare as a result of Budget 2018, the article includes an HAP payment of €294. There is no equivalent rent supplement included for 2006.

Though a one-parent family would have found it difficult to access rent supplement in 2006, it is equally difficult to access HAP today.

The current housing assistance payment/rent supplement limit in Dublin for a one-parent household with a child is €1,250.

The most recent report from the Simon Community shows that only three properties were available in Dublin city centre within this limit; all of these were one-bedroom units.

While there is flexibility in the HAP limits, there is no guarantee that a family will secure a HAP tenancy or be in a position to pay a top-up above the limit.

Excluding housing support, income from social welfare following Budget 2018 is closer to €45 a week higher than 10 years ago — significantly lower than the €338 quoted in the article.

Secondly and crucially, the analysis does not include the to the rules attached to the one parent family payment (OFP) regarding income from employment. Approximately 60pc of OFP recipients work part-time. In 2006, a lone parent could earn up to €146.50 a week without affecting the rate of payment, and could also access family income supplement (FIS). This was the case regardless of the age of one’s youngest child. Now, once the youngest child reaches age seven, one is required to transfer to the jobseeker’s transitional payment. The earning disregard is lower (€130 in 2018, which also applies to OFP) and FIS is not payable with JST. As a result a single mother, with a child aged from seven-14 and working part-time (20 hours on national minimum wage) is approximately €37 a week worse off than in 2006.

Though the case presented in the article was for a full-time mother, it is still important to highlight that these changes affected the majority of OFP recipients.

Last week, a commissioned report from the Department of Employment and Social Protection found its own reforms made 50pc of lone parents worse off financially and increased levels of deprivation. Today, as the group most at risk of poverty, one-parent families are the largest group assisted by SVP.

We, therefore, refute the conclusion that a single mum on social welfare was ‘one of the biggest winners of the Budget measures introduced since the height of the Celtic Tiger’.

Tricia Keilthy, Acting Head of Social Justice

and Policy, Society of St Vincent de Paul