The Government's welfare reform proposals will ensure that it will be six years before lone parents currently receiving the One-Parent Family Payment will be affected by the reduction in the qualifying age from 18 to 13.
In a statement clarifying yesterday's draft legislation, Minister for Social Protection Éamon Ó Cuív also said that reforms to the payment would guarantee it to recipients who currently have 16 and 17-year-olds until they turned 18.
But he added that, from 2013, the cut-off point would be reduced each year until all recipients whose youngest child was 13 would be excluded in 2016.
The clarification has been welcomed by a spokesperson for OPEN, the network of one-parent families, which said last night's statement from the Minister had unnecessarily worried recipients by failing to clarify the phasing-in process for the proposed reforms.
But Frances Byrne has expressed disappointment at the threat to punish people on the dole who do not take up what is deemed to be an offer of suitable work or what is called an appropriate opportunity to train.
Meanwhile, Fine Gael's Social Protection spokesperson criticised the Social Welfare Bill for threatening to introduce penalties without prospects.
Olwyn Enright said lone parents were being singled out as the easy option and she accused Minister Ó Cuív of failing to offer any real way to help them to get training or education in return for the loss of several years of One-Parent Family Payments.
She also said the Bill would do nothing for employment and that it failed to deliver on Government promises for a PRSI holiday for employers taking on new staff.
She said the Fine Gael proposal was included in the last Budget, and was supposed to be in the Bill.
Former Minister for Social Welfare Mary Hanafin said the aim was to support lone parents while getting them into education and training and eventually into employment.
She added that her Department had set the age at 13 years because it was felt that it was after this period of primary education that parents were facing less expenditure in bringing up their children.
General President of SIPTU Jack O'Connor described the proposed changes as 'heartless and reprehensible beyond belief'.
Mr O'Connor said the Government had dismissed suggestions for a pro-active jobs support strategy and that its policy would expose young people to exploitation and leave them with no alternative but to emigrate.
