Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The cuts to the one-parent allowance impact particularly on mothers. They severely penalise those recipients who make the effort to upskill or join community employment schemes. The Government is sending the message to one-parent families that upskilling to try to get into the workplace is to be discouraged. More than 90% of the recipients of the one-parent family payment are women. These changes are being made through the backdoor and will severely impact on women reliant on this payment. One-parent families are at greater risk of poverty than most other families. One is 4.5 times more likely to live in poverty if one is part of a one-parent family. There must be sufficient support for these vulnerable mothers. The change to the income criteria, the penalisation of recipients who make an effort to upskill or join community employment schemes and the dramatic halving of the age eligibility limits his these recipients severely. This flies in the face of the mantra that there have been no cuts to social welfare rates. Make no mistake about it, this is a severe cut to the rates for one-parent families. Those who make an effort to upskill and engage in community employment schemes are to be penalised by virtue of this proposal. Fianna Fáil vehemently opposes this section. It can have no hand, act or part in supporting it.

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