Lone parents are to be allocated personal advisers to give them a better chance to enter the workplace or education system.
The move is aimed at helping single parents escape the poverty trap by providing more direct contact with welfare officials who can identify a person's needs and provide one-to-one support.
More than 30 officials have been trained to provide advice to lone parents, while others will be recruited or retrained so there will be advisers in each of the 52 local welfare offices.
"The model has worked well in Britain, where there is direct personal contact and advice for lone parents on training, education, work or welfare issues," a senior department source said yesterday.
"At the end of the day, each person has a different need, whether it's education or training.
"A lot of lone parents are unfairly trapped and need support rather than inspectors pouncing on them," the source said.
About 60 per cent of lone parents, or 80,040 persons, are receiving weekly social welfare payments.
Figures show that lone parents have the highest rate of poverty among social welfare recipients.
Until now the processing of one-parent family payments has been done from a central office in Co Sligo.
A comprehensive review of payment arrangements for lone parents was undertaken in 2000 and the review recommended the "localisation" of the administration of the scheme to bring lone parents into closer contact with support services.
Following a successful pilot project in the Tallaght area, Minister for Social and Family Affairs Séamus Brennan is expanding the scheme to welfare offices across the State.
The process has already begun and officials estimated that personal advice for lone parents will be available for 90 per cent of one-parent family payment recipients by the end of this year.
At the end of February 2005 there were 80,040 persons receiving one-parent family payment.
On average, some 350 new claims for one-parent family payment are received each week, equivalent to about 18,000 per year.
The one parent family payment is the income support scheme for separated, unmarried and widowed persons and also for prisoners' spouses who are bringing up a child or children without the support of a partner.
Separately, officials are still examining plans to replace the lone-parents' allowance with a "family friendly" child benefit scheme which would help ease the transition from welfare to work or education.
A range of options are being studied by a high-level group of officials from a number of Government departments that will report to the Minister in the coming months.
Mr Brennan says the system will end the provision where extra benefits are paid on the basis that a parent is living alone at all times.
