The State provides "very real financial incentives" that "may actively encourage the formation of lone-parent families", according to the Professor Emeritus of the University of Limerick, Dr Edward Walsh.
Dr Walsh said the number of female lone-parents getting Lone-Parents' Allowance Family Benefit "has grown from less than 3,000 in 1975 to some 80,000 now". A single mother with two children could get as much as €25,000 from "a wide range of social and financial supports".
In a script due to be delivered next Wednesday, but released in draft form last night, Dr Walsh said: "Clearly in ways we do much better in 2005 in looking after young lone females who become pregnant and have children than we did previously. Yet the support the State provides may have moved further than it should: very real financial incentives are now in place that may actively encourage the formation of lone- parent families."
It had been widely suggested in research literature "that many of the social ills we face in Ireland can be traced to the growth of lone-parent families, and especially to families where the father is absent", he said.
In the US "much research has been conducted on the cause of social breakdown, and while it may be politically incorrect to highlight it, many studies associate high levels of substance abuse, rape, child abuse and other unpleasant social phenomena with the growth of lone-parent families."
The speech will be delivered at University College Cork as part of The Last Lecture Series being run as part of the Capital of Culture 2005 celebrations.