Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein)

One of the saddest aspects of child poverty is that a large proportion of children who live in poverty come from families in which one parent is working. During the protest against the reduction in the minimum wage, which the current Government thankfully restored, I was struck by how many people in minimum wage jobs spoke about how they are unable to adequately look after the basic needs of their children. That is surely the ultimate indictment of a society that is allegedly based on encouraging work and self-sufficiency. That those who often have the hardest and most unpleasant jobs are rewarded in such a manner exposes the myth that those who are subject to poverty are somehow responsible for their positions. The vast majority of unemployed people are out of work through no fault of their own.

The working poor are being penalised, rather than rewarded, for their efforts. They are being exploited by low-wage employers. They are being over-charged by other members of the rack-renting Irish elite in return for a roof over the heads and the means to live. If that is not enough, the working poor, like the rest of the working population, are seeing their social provisions being undermined in order to pick up the gambling tabs for the banker losers of that elite. Just as no child should be in poverty, no child should be subject to the draining experience of such a life. A child whose parents are working has all the more reason to ask why he or she has to go hungry and badly clothed. All children are entitled to have the costs of their education met and to enjoy the small pleasures of childhood.

When Deputies consider this motion and the report to which it refers, which shows that 9% of children are having their childhoods taken away from them, they should do more than engage in platitudes. They should not merely talk about maintaining social welfare rates. They should move away from and reject the plans to further undermine the wages and conditions of the working poor. Low-wage employers, with the collaboration of this Government, including, to its shame, the Labour Party, have engaged in a cynical assault aimed at further undermining those wages and conditions.

Christmas is a few weeks away. Next week, we will come to the House for the budget. It appears that the budget will target low-income families, unemployed people and those in receipt of child benefit once again. That spin is being put out there. People are afraid as a result of what they are hearing on a daily basis on television. The rumours are not being killed off by those who are in a position to do so. If these cuts were not going to happen, Ministers could deny them and thereby put people at rest, at least. That is not happening. Instead, they are choosing to exploit people's fears cynically. They will probably deliver a budget that is less hard-hitting than what is being propagated, as if that will make it all right.

Thousands of children in this country will not have a Christmas because of the failed policies of those who sat on the Government benches previously and those who are continuing the same policies now. At a time when children are hungry, it is an absolute and utter disgrace that €700 million was put into Anglo Irish Bank in recent weeks, with a further €1.25 billion to follow some time in January. Many parents do not have enough income to heat the house, put enough food on the table or clothe their children properly. The social and economic conditions in which they are living are preventing them from developing the benefits and abilities that every child has. I listened to the Deputy on the other side of the House with the curly hair. He is gone now. He did not even bother to wait.

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