Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, United Left) | Oireachtas source

I tabled the amendment. The reason I considered it important to insert the provision in this section or to generate a debate on it was that while it might be in conflict with the Bill it certainly is not in conflict with the Labour Women in 2012, when this was originally going through. The National Women's Council of Ireland, NWCI, had an amendment at its conference stating that seven years of age was too young and the social welfare Bill should not provide for that. I will quote from what the Labour Women said:

I want to start by saying that seven is too young for any child to be left alone without the supervision of his or her parent or another responsible adult. I commend Frances Byrne and OPEN for their campaign which has highlighted the reduction in age limit of the youngest child of families in receipt of the one-parent family payment and the effect this could have on single parent families, the majority of whom are headed by women and 40% of whom are at risk of poverty. OPEN's campaign has rightly focused on the lack of affordable after-school child care available to families in Ireland, and the provision of which would allow more parents to work, as most have expressed a wish to do.

The statement finished by saying:

I believe that working together with the Minister towards something on which we are all agreed in principle is more likely to succeed than calling for removal of the section of the Act that is already going ahead. I know that OPEN and the NWCI have expressed concerns regarding the practicality of introducing adequate child care provisions in such a short timeframe. Of course, the flip side to demanding the provisions is to hold the Minister to her promise not to proceed with the cuts if the provisions are not in place. I believe we should support this approach as the NWCI does...

That was from the Labour Women, and 15 women signed it.

While the amendment is in conflict with the Bill, the provision should not be in the Bill. We should not cut one-parent family payments when children reach the age of seven. The Labour Party members should hang their heads in shame. This is what they issued at the time. It was a smokescreen to get what they wanted in 2013.