Willie Penrose (Westmeath, Labour)

This report is a severe jolt to the system and a significant rebuttal of the fatuous and ill-founded comments that have emanated from certain quarters. There has often been a distortion of the facts surrounding lone parenthood. There is no crock of gold in lone parenthood and lone parents have been badly maligned by recent utterances by certain people. Such people, following a perusal of this report, should apologise for their facile statements which were grossly untrue.

Some of the acts carried out by the Minister's predecessor have contributed to this situation, including the savage 16 social welfare cuts. We are still waiting for the back to education allowance waiting period to be reduced to six months. What about rent allowance? I can give the Minister an example of a lone parent working on a FÁS scheme with four months left on the scheme. Due to a combined income of the FÁS scheme and the lone parent allowance, she is earning in excess of the figure allowed to claim rent allowance. This means she can no longer participate in the scheme and it is unfair that everything is taken from her when she is just a few euro over the eligibility threshold. This should be looked at on a pro rata basis so that the rent allowance can be paid pro rata. This is what has lone parents in poverty. There are 80,000 people in receipt of a one parent family allowance, along with 13,000 other lone parents as well as 150,000 children.

Lone parents have to micro-manage their money. They know what every item of household goods costs. When they succeed in getting maintenance from their partners, there is an immediate reduction of rent allowance so they are no better off. Does the Minister agree that lone parents, under the current structures, are effectively ensnared in a poverty welfare trap? Does he agree that affordability of child care is now acute for lone parents? A worker on the minimum wage has to work from Monday morning to 1 p.m on Wednesday in order to pay for child care before he or she earns a brass farthing to pay for the other household expenses. People who want to go to work cannot afford child care. They are ensnared in a vicious cycle of poverty. It is time to tackle this once and for all to ensure affordability of child care.

Does it worry the Minister that financial companies and money lenders are charging families up to 200% interest on loans? The report commissioned by OPEN, which represents 78 lone parent groups, referred to that fact. Is the Minister concerned that lone parents find themselves in the position of accumulating rolling debts? Is he surprised or shocked by the finding that the ESB charges up to 22.9% on hire purchase agreements, which is almost equivalent to a moneylender charge? It is time the Government prevented legal moneylenders from charging more than a 30% annual percentage rate of interest. This would be a start in helping lone parents and would represent a positive response to this excellent report from OPEN.

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