MORE state supports for working parents are to be proposed in an interim report of the Commission on the Family, which is due to be presented to the Government soon.
The report is looking at changes in the social welfare code and tax reliefs for working parents.
Social welfare changes will be aimed at drawing jobless parents, in particular lone parents, back into the workforce. Although lone parents can earn up to 1.6 times as much as a single person before losing some benefits, only 10 per cent of lone parents have jobs.
The commission is looking at ways of making it more worthwhile for them, and other unemployed parents, to rejoin the workforce. It is also expected to recommend tax relief for childcare facilities, where parents are working.
Any changes are expected to apply to both married and cohabiting couples.
Details of the interim report are to be given to the Minister for Social Welfare, Mr De Rossa. He told a conference on "New Directions in Social Welfare" on in Dublin Castle at the weekend that the changing nature of the family had huge implications for EU social policy.
Women were concerned that some comments on the crisis facing traditional family structures were a form of "not so subtle criticism that we would not have these problems if women knew their place.
"Let me make it absolutely clear to you that, when I urge a debate on family supports, I have no such covert agenda, but simply a desire to help resolve the day to day problems people face in their lives, in a way which acknowledges people's right to choose the lifestyle that best suits them.
"Our political systems have been too nervous of dealing in a creative way with the challenges posed by changing family structures and I think it is not good enough to ignore the context in which people live."
On social exclusion, Mr De Rossa said "policy makers and politicians should no longer be content with `passively' picking up the consequences of unemployment. We must actively press our perspective in the formulation of an integrated strategy to deal with the causes and effects of unemployment." "A social and economic market which is in balance, which is equipped to deliver progress on both fronts and which has robust and democratic foundations would be a fine legacy for the 21st century.
In particular, he said, policy makers must "abandon some of the `mantras' of our time, one of which says that tax and social protection policies are negative and burdensome.
"We must instead acknowledge that they provide the framework for the contribution we make as individuals to a civilised society." The role of social protection in bringing about societal transformation would be vital, he said.
The EU Commissioner for Social Affairs, Mr Padraig Flynn, said he hoped a resolution to combat unemployment and social exclusion would be adopted at the EU summit in December.
People no longer simply needed short term support while the were temporarily out of a job, he said. Social exclusion, family break up, obsolescent skills and long term illness or disability were becoming increasingly common.
Minimum income schemes "have a rightful place in any overall policy for fighting exclusion", he said. At the same time there was a danger that the emergence of "a kind of exclusion wage would confirm that society was divided "between those who contribute and those who simply receive. This is a division that we cannot afford."
He also warned that free mobility of people within the EU "will remain a hazy concept unless we can achieve the effective co ordination of social security schemes" in member states. Critics of social protection would do well to remember that Europe's high levels of social protection have had much to do with its strong economic performance as well.