Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I have one further question. I thank Ms Byrne for sharing her journey, which was powerful and very good to listen to. I had a somewhat similar experience, although not quite the same as hers and I did not face the same barriers that she did, especially when looking to retrain and access education. I will give an example from my experience about how things changed for me. I have multiple sclerosis. I was on a disability allowance payment and I needed to change my career because, at the time, I was not physically able to do the work that I was doing. At that time, people were allowed to do a community employment, CE, scheme and keep their disability allowance. As a father of young kids, there was no way I would have been able to afford to do that unless I was getting the dual payment. That was changed within two years of my accessing that programme. If I had accessed the programme two years later, I would not have gone to college, I would not have changed careers and I probably would not be sitting here speaking to these people now.

I take Ms Byrne’s point in regard to carers and disability payments for lone parents. What does she think should change to enable her to access the educational and career paths that she needs at this time?