About 60 per cent of lone parents are receiving weekly social welfare payments, the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mr Brennan, told the Dáil.
"The social welfare system has provided income support and other services for lone parents and has adapted to the changes in recent decades that has seen, proportionately, a decline in the incidence of lone parenthood arising from widowhood, and a growth in the incidence arising from separation and divorce and from parents being unmarried," Mr Brennan added.
He said that the numbers in receipt of one-parent family payment last year were 80,103, up from 58,960 in 1997, when the scheme in its current form was introduced. There were, in addition, 12,225 lone parents with children in receipt of payments under social insurance, 10,769 widowed persons and 1,456 deserted wives.
Mr Brennan said that increases in the numbers of non-marital births, as revealed in statistics, did not necessarily result in comparable increases in the incidence of lone parenthood. In many cases, the parents of the children were living together and would parent together.
"A significant proportion marry soon after the birth of their first child. Others continue to cohabit for a period afterwards," he said.
"For example, CSO figures reveal that up to 40 per cent of cohabiting couples have children and that a significant proportion are in their 20s, many of whom may subsequently marry."
The Labour spokesman on social welfare, Mr Willie Penrose, said that the best route out of poverty was through work.
"Surely the best way to tackle poverty is to ensure that as many people as possible qualify for benefit during their transition to work, and that they do not lose their entitlement to ancillary benefits such as the back-to-school allowance, clothing and footwear allowance, medical cards and other benefits," he added.
Mr Brennan said that the Cabinet committee on social inclusion had last November requested a senior officials' group to draw up a report on obstacles to employment for lone parents.
"We have expressed our aspirations, dissatisfaction and ambitions in this area, and it is time to get down to the hard work," he said.
"The group is working strongly with very strong terms of reference. I look for forward to hearing from it as soon as possible."
