Hanafin to cut back on benefits for lone parents
Minister declares war on payments system to put focus on family unit
Lone parents are set to be big losers as Social Affairs Minister Mary Hanafin looks to radically overhaul the benefits given to them, as she sets to re-assert family values in her new department, she revealed in an interview with the Sunday Independent.
In a bold move back to more traditional and conservative values, she has declared war on the system of benefits given to lone parents, saying she wants to put the focus back on the family unit.
"The other people who are in a welfare trap are the lone parents. The fact we pay a lone parent a benefit until the child is 22 is no incentive for them to either get into steady relationships, to marry, to get into employment, and there is a new strategy needed on lone parents."
She added: "A big thing we are pushing is support for the family. We have the responsibility of supporting family. And not just focusing on the more disadvantaged areas, as has been the case in the past, but the family generally. And seeing what we can do to support the family and value the family."
Last week marked the fifth anniversary of her husband, senior counsel Eamon Leahy's sudden death at the age of just 46, and Minister Hanafin revealed how there was still a massive gap in her life.
Touchingly, she received calls from close friends -- and also from her former boss Bertie Ahern on the day of the anniversary.
Speaking this weekend, the 49-year-old minister told how she has struggled to cope with the loss of her husband.
It is evident that the loss still deeply affects her. She said her new ministry does not take up as much time as her old one, education, and she admitted there was a deep gap in her life.
"It's five years last week. The job in education filled every hour of every day. This one won't fill as much because there isn't a much out-and-about work, so there is a gap that I have to fill." She pauses and there is a welling of emotion in her eyes and voice, but then continues, "but maybe I'll have to take up golf".
She added that her work ethic helped her get through the difficult days in the wake of Eamon's death.
"I tend to throw myself 100 per cent into whatever I do, and I think I always did, but particularly in the past few years."
In a previous interview in 2006 with this newspaper, she detailed her fears about not having her best friend and greatest supporter by her side, but how her friends inside and outside of politics rallied around her because they knew she was "going home to no support".
Eamon's anniversary occurred last Thursday week, and on a day that she was no doubt feeling sad and low, out of the blue came a phone call from her former boss and friend Bertie Ahern.
"I mean, you're talking about five years on and I am at home last week on Eamon's anniversary and who rings me but Bertie. It's so typical of the man." She added that when the call first came in from the former Taoiseach, with whom she had had a close bond, first as his chief whip and then at the cabinet table, she naturally thought her old boss was looking for something. She also said she was greatly moved by the phone call on the anniversary.
"That kind of personal interest from someone at that level, you just never expect. When the call came the other day, I just presumed he was looking for something -- it never struck me why he would ring me."
Mary Hanafin served as education minister for four years, and after a 17-year career in teaching she was, in her own words, "very comfortable". But she denies that her move to Family and Social Affairs was a demotion, after a torrid final year in charge of the country's schools and universities.
She said she has had no time to get comfortable in her new job and has had to hit the ground running.
"There wasn't a settling in period because immediately the live register was going up, so suddenly it became a department of great focus and immediately people were asking about the long-term future for pensions, so it was a quick way of settling in and there are a lot of issues around it."
The minister also suggested that she could support the notion of re-introducing third-level fees, as Irish universities are facing into severe budgetary crises.
"Well, the Programme for Government said it wouldn't consider the reintroduction of fees, but given the economic reality, the Government must consider all issues. I recognise the colleges need more money, and they do extraordinary work."
She also seemed to support the idea of a second vote on the Lisbon Treaty.
Speaking days after the brief visit of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, she said: "There were an awful lot of people who took the don't know, vote no option, and if we had risen to the challenge and explained it differently, the outcome would have been different."
- DANIEL McCONNELL
