The rule that prevents recipients of lone parent supports cohabiting with their partners is to be removed, Minister for Social and Family Affairs Martin Cullen has said.
Mr Cullen said he hoped to remove the ban as part of wider changes affecting lone parents before the next budget.
"I want to end the way it is at the moment, where the mother is left on her own to raise the children. I'm quite clear that having both parents involved in the raising of a child is a far better approach and there shouldn't be any penalties."
Asked if he favoured amending the cohabitation ban or getting rid of it altogether, the Minister replied: "It has to go, I don't think there is any halfway house. I think something is either right or it's not right."
Removing the ban would not of itself solve the problems facing lone parents, whose children tend to be at much greater risk of poverty than the general population, he said.
The Irish Times reported yesterday that Mr Cullen intends to introduce welfare changes that could end up moving thousands of lone parents from welfare to work by making it obligatory for them to seek employment or training. Lone parents could be required to liaise with a welfare adviser once their youngest child reached the age of seven or eight.
Yesterday, the Minister said the State spent up to €1.5 billion a year supporting lone parents. The risk of the children of lone parents facing poverty were far higher because their parents were not in employment and the evidence was that if parents could access employment, their prospects improved dramatically. "It's not about taking away rights from individuals, it's about smoothing the way and giving them more supports if necessary," he added.
Labour's Róisín Shortall said it was time for the Government to make firm decisions on the issue. She said Mr Cullen's proposals were first "floated" by the previous minister, Séamus Brennan, in 2004 and were the subject of a discussion document in 2006. "The issues have been considered for long enough and it is now time for firm decisions."
Ms Shortall called for the abolition of the cohabitation rule: "It makes absolutely no sense for the State, from a social or family point of view, to be actively encouraging parents to live apart. Yet this is an inevitable consequence of the current rule as unmarried parents who opt to live together see their welfare payments significantly reduced."
