One Family attended a briefing this evening at the Department of Social Protection to learn about the new scheme announced today that will be available to lone parents:  Jobseekers’ Allowance – Transition. The scheme removes the requirement to be looking and available for full-time employment, but has particular conditionalities that must be met. The Department [...]

One Family’s Director of Policy & Programmes, Stuart Duffin, is attending the Conference on the Social Investment Package today and tomorrow at the Leuven Institute for Ireland in Europe, Belgium. A framework for policy reforms to enhance social protection, invest in people’s skills and capabilities, and support people as required throughout their lives is outlined [...]

One Family is attending Taking Action to Fight Child Poverty and to Promote Child Well-being, a two-day conference in Dublin organised by Eurochild, European Anti-Poverty Network Ireland, UNICEF and Children’s Rights Alliance as part of Ireland’s Presidency of the EU. Yesterday UNICEF published Report Card 11 naming Ireland as the 10th best developed country in [...]

Almost half of the State’s children are living in households in receipt of social welfare, the Oireachtas Social Protection Committee was told yesterday. Ita Mangan, Chairwoman of the group that recommended a two-tier child benefit system, warned that this is “worrying” and also told the committee that one in five children in the Republic of [...]

Budget 2013 has been delivered in the UK today. Responding to the UK government’s announcement that up to 85% of childcare costs for some low-income families eligible for Universal Credit (UC) will be covered from April 2016, Stuart Duffin, One Family’s Director of Policy & Programmes, said: “UK government is recognising the high costs of [...]

The State of the Nation’s Children Report: Ireland 2012 has been published this afternoon; the fourth report in a biannual series. Frances Fitzgerald TD, Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, launched the report which shows that the number of children in Ireland has increased by 13.4% since 2002. The Minister said it pointed to the [...]

The Report on Child and Family Income Support by the Advisory Group on Tax and Social Welfare was published yesterday and has caused considerable concern for parents across Ireland. The report, however, is an advisory report submitted to Government for consideration; Government has not agreed it. No decisions have been made on this and no [...]

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has released the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) in Ireland for 2011, a household survey covering a broad range of issues in relation to income and living conditions. These new figures show that lone parent households are the most deprived, with 56% classified as deprived. According to the [...]

Listen back to Stuart Duffin, One Family Welfare to Work Manager, speaking out on RTE 1′s Drivetime yesterday, calling for reform of the Child Benefit system. He is at 01:57:00:00 towards the end of the show, here is the link http://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=9%3A3367480%3A83%3A14-08-2012%3A

Stuart Duffin, One Family, Welfare to Work Manager, was at the 66th Labour Party Conference in Galway over the weekend promoting One Family’s course of   action in response to Budget 2012.  All 750 copies of the paper, One Family – Ten Solutions – Smarter Futures were taken and read. One Family is advocating cost neutral administrative [...]