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	The Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection has heard that lone parents transitioning from the One Parent Family Payment to JobSeeker&#39;s or other alternatives will be considerably less well off than they were four years ago.</p>
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	The committee heard that parents working a 20-hour week stand to lose &euro;50 a week.</p>
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	The committee is hearing testimony from One Family and Spark, groups representing lone parents.</p>
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	They say the new measures will increase the already high levels of deprivation among lone-parent families.</p>
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	One Family estimated the deprivation level at 63%.</p>
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	The One Parent Family Payment is to end for families whose youngest child has turned seven.</p>
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	The committee heard this will affect up to to 39,000 families this July.</p>
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	John McKeon, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Social Protection, said a transitional arrangement for lone parents those with children aged 7-13 meant than no one with a child under 13 would be forced to seek employment.</p>
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	He said the department was providing information sessions to families affected by the transition and that 11,000 families had already made the transition.</p>
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	Labour Party TD Brendan Ryan said it seemed that the change was acting as a disincentive to employment.</p>
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	Independent TD Richard Boyd Barrett said there should be an acknowledgement that this has not been handled correctly.</p>
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	From 2 July, lone parents with a child aged seven will transfer from the One Parent Family Allowance to Jobseeker&#39;s Allowance Transition or the Back to Work Family Dividend.</p>
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	The reform was introduced by Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton nearly three years ago to encourage lone parents into education and employment.</p>
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	It will not affect a lone parent who is not working as they will transfer to the Jobseeker&#39;s Transition payment, but for a lone parent working 20 hours a week on the minimum wage, that person will lose &euro;50 a week.</p>
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	Fianna F&aacute;il&#39;s spokesperson for Social Protection Willie O&#39;Dea described the move as &quot;perverse, at at time when the Labour Party is part of Government, to be cutting the poorest section of our society&quot;.</p>
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	Speaking on RT&Eacute;&#39;s Morning Ireland, chair of the Committee on Education and Social Protection Joanna Tuffy said these changes had been long announced and have been phased in over time.</p>
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	She said the aim was to move lone parents into the workplace and that the childcare needs of seven-year-olds are very different to those of pre-school children.</p>
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	She said lone parents who are on the minimum wage are entitled to the family income supplement.</p>
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	She also said the back to work dividend is in place this year and parents can keep &euro;29 a week per child of their social welfare payment if they go back to work.</p>
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	<a href="http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0218/681052-politics/">http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0218/681052-politics/</a></p>
