CHILDREN NOT SUPPORTING THEIR PARENTS

CHILDREN NOT SUPPORTING THEIR PARENTS:

(Number of reported cases): 9.

Dr Fatimah Lateef asked the Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports (a) for the past two years, what is the annual number of reported cases of children not supporting their parents; (b) what were the outcomes in general and how were these cases resolved; and (c) what are the common root causes for these cases seen and how many of them require legal intervention.

The Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports (Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon) (for the Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports): Mr Speaker, Sir, for the past two years, the Tribunal for the Maintenance of Parents (TMP) received a total of 870 reports of children not supporting their parents.

To preserve family ties, parties involved in a case are advised to first consider resolving their differences through counselling and mediation. The family is encouraged to first approach community resources like the Community Mediation Centres and Family Service Centres for help and advice. Filing for maintenance at TMP is the last resort.

Through this approach, the majority of the cases were resolved without the need for legal intervention. Of the 870 reports, 78% of cases opted for community mediation and counselling. These cases were able to resolve their issues amicably. Only 188, or 22%, went on to file applications for maintenance at TMP. 68% of these applications heard at TMP to-date received a maintenance order. The remaining 32% of the cases which did not receive a maintenance order were either dismissed or withdrawn. Some of the reasons for dismissing the applications include: parents having not discharged their duties, children unable to pay any maintenance despite their best abilities, and parents being already adequately maintained.

From the reported cases, truly "unfilial" children are a minority. Many cases arise from the breakdown of family relationships by divorce or separation of the parents, complaints of undesirable behaviours of either parent, and sibling rivalry over the maintenance or care managements for the parents. There are also some cases where the children are incarcerated, or simply do not have the financial ability to maintain their parents.

Dr Fatimah Lateef (Marine Parade): I thank the Minister of State for her response. The number of cases that she mentioned will probably be the tip of the iceberg. Are there any steps that the Ministry is undertaking to ensure that the numbers received will decrease and whether we can actually have some kind of campaigns or steps to help address this issue which is certainly of a concern to us? Certainly, counselling is the mainstay of managing issues like this. I was wondering whether there is any plan to recruit and also train more social workers in this area.

Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon: Maybe I will take the last point first. The number of social workers in Singapore today is 600. I am sure the Member knows that more and more social services require social workers. As she knows, now the market is very good. Even after graduation from NUS, half of them do not even enter into this field of social work. I think my Minister had mentioned last year that he had reviewed the pay and working conditions, and we tried to peg the salaries of social workers with the social workers in the health service area. We are going to look into the full spectrum on how to help the social workers. I think the Minister is going to speak on this in the COS.

The other area is the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Ageing, under Minister Lim Boon Heng, which is also looking into the issues of the aged, how to have a total approach. So we need to educate the individual on how to be active, how to plan for the aged, the financial aspects and CPF, and so on. The other area is that we also try to revive the relationship between the family and the siblings, how to have not just the family, the neighbour and also the community, how to help each other. Therefore, I should say that we are quite lucky that over 90% of the old people are still active and they can go to the CC, the karaoke and the social line dance. We do not want to paint a very pessimistic picture. Actually, as a whole, I think aged Singaporeans

are quite lucky. Their children are still quite filial. But we do agree that we do have a small percentage who do not manage their finances very well. Some of them also do not work, especially older women.

Therefore, the family, community and all of us need to put in the effort to help the family to take care of each other. We will definitely work with the Family Service Centres, the CDCs, NCSS and the volunteer groups to enhance and help them to have a cordial relationship. All of us are learning. When the society is ageing, the behaviour of the aged is quite different. So public education is the in-thing on how to make sure that we have the knowledge and the skills to communicate with our older people. My Minister will be elaborating more on this during the COS debate.

Ms Irene Ng Phek Hoong (Tampines): Sir, the Minister of State said that the unfilial children are a minority. But at our MPS, we see that there is an increasing number of parents who come forward to seek help to pay for their medical bills and day-care centres because their children are not willing to support them. Can I ask the Minister of State whether she sees an increasing trend of children not willing to support their parents even though they could afford to do so and what programmes can the Ministry put in place to encourage family responsibility towards parents and to promote filial piety?

Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon: Sir, as a whole, we still maintain our traditional values quite well. Based on the previous survey, 70% of our old people actually depend on their children financially for, say, maybe from about $100 to more than $1,000. The number of cases under the Parents' Maintenance Act for the last few years has been quite stable. It is about 400 cases a year. After mediation and counselling, only about 100 applications were actually filed under the Parents' Maintenance Act. So if we look at the previous family survey, as a whole, the family structure is still quite intact. However, I do agree that it is very challenging; it is actually moving towards a not very desirable situation.

The other area of concern is that, if Members had read the papers yesterday, the income gap is also an issue. How do we help this lower income group? In 2004, the Prime Minister set up ComCare. Previously, we only had public assistance. Now, the Government has even taken over the role of helping those in the low-income families. We are also having a big chunk of these cases because the children themselves cannot afford to take care of their own families. Therefore, we are now encouraging the older people to carry on working for as long as possible. It is not so much the children are unfilial as their inability to take care of their parents. We would therefore like to urge our healthy older people to continue to work, say, part-time, to make some money to support themselves. Therefore, financial and CPF planning is very important to support ourselves. It is not that the children do not want to take care of their parents. Actually, some of them also cannot afford to take care of their aged parents.

Again, I am sure the Minister will be talking more about how to help the lower income group. But the Ministry will definitely do more public education, even through the media, to promote stronger family ties and work closely with the community to develop this type of programme. All of us must show the example and be involved in this programme through the people we know. That is very important.

We will take note of this. I would just like to tell Members that we should not be too over-conscious, because the number is quite stable. But we do know how to help the lower income group to help their families. The key word is that it is still "working".