Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I look forward to the Minister's response on section 5 but it is regrettable that this amendment has been ruled out of order. The amendment seeks to change section 1. It represents a final plea to the Minister. We have been through the impact on working lone parents ad nauseam. The changes that will start in May have no impact on non-working lone parents, but they will have an impact on working lone parents. This appears to fly directly in the face of the Minister's stated intention to encourage lone parents to work. The family income supplement, FIS, scheme encourages people to take up low-paid employment because it makes them financially better off, but what is happening here will make working lone parents financially less well off. It is no coincidence that the number of lone parents participating in the workforce has diminished considerably on the Minister's watch.

We have raised all of those issues with the Minister. The nearest thing to an answer I can recall receiving is that people would be much better off because they can take up more work and qualify for the family income supplement, for which they would not have qualified up to now. That presupposes that there is more work available or that they are in a position to take up more work with their child care responsibilities.

In conclusion, the Minister stated unequivocally in the Dáil that she would not trigger this change until such time as we had a Scandinavian type system of child care in this country. The amendment, whether it is in order or out of order, is simply asking the Minister to honour the promise that was solemnly given by her to Dáil Éireann on 18 April 2012.

Are we to understand that promise has been abandoned?