Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to have time, for which I thank the Technical Group, to contribute to the debate on this Bill. According to the Government, its main purpose is to provide for the introduction of a new back to work family dividend, as announced in budget 2015, to help jobseekers with families and lone parents to return to work. "Back to work family dividend" are lovely words; I wonder who the scriptwriters were and I mean do disrespect to the staff of the Department.

I am shocked that a Labour Party Minister would introduce this Bill. I have great time for the Tánaiste who has done much good, but she should see that this is a failure and not go ahead with it. I sat on the Government benches for a number of years before the current Government took office. I heard the Tánaiste while she was on this side of the House make many good and passionate pleas for single parents and those on lower incomes. I listened carefully to Deputy Colm Keaveney who was part of the Labour Party's platform at the last general election. He spoke passionately about the ideals the Labour Party had put before the people and from whence it had come. The Labour Party was founded in my town of Clonmel more than 100 years ago. It has a proud record of service, including by a former Ceann Comhairle who is still alive, Mr. Seán Treacy, and others. It is now the mud guard of a regressive and repressive Government, peddling this so-called legislation and, worse still, voting for same. Where is its social conscience? What has happened to it in four years? It knew where the books were before it entered government. It was going to burn the bondholders. The fires of Hell were not going to be as hot as the ones the bondholders would make. The Labour Party was going to do everything. It sought and saw the books from the Department of Finance before entering government. This was faciliated by the late Brian Lenihan. The Labour Party knew what the situation was; therefore, it cannot blame everything on the last Government. Where is its moral compass when it comes to ordinary single parents who are struggling? This comes from a small businessman who has employed people. Many good single parents of both genders are working or trying to find work. It is not that they are all at home watching big screen televisions, as the former Tánaiste once said.

That could not be further from the truth. If I heard that coming from the Fine Gael benches, I would say, "Fine", because they were never interested in the little people or the ordinary people in my constituency. It is the ranchers and the people with the daffodils and tree-lined avenues that they are mainly interested in and we know who lives in those houses.

More than 30,000 single parents will lose their one-parent family payments in July, according to the Department. Groups representing lone parents told the joint committee that the forthcoming changes will hit the incomes of impoverished single parent families and make it harder for them to work because of the way the new social welfare supports are structured. Work is at the kernel of this. Every day we hear plaudits about the unemployment figures but we have to unshackle the bureaucracy and allow people to work and allow the self-employed in my constituency and elsewhere to take them on part time before, hopefully, migrating to full-time employment. This will benefit them and the community. There is nothing more demoralising than to be unemployed and to be unable to secure work. The Government parties have lost all context and vision in supporting these people.

SPARK says the youngest child aged over seven and under 14 years will transfer to the jobseker's transition, JST, payment. This is another lovely acronym. However, the problem is getting an appointment. I say nothing against the staff of the Clonmel social welfare office. I salute the work they do but people cannot walk into the office and get an appointment. They must have an appointment before they go in. Community welfare officers who always advised people on the ground have been withdrawn. One would not think the Labour Party was part of the Government. Instead of rolling out CWOs, they have taken away their services.

Claimants must apply by May, engage with job activation and attend a seminar. This is wonderful stuff. I heard on the news that the Department does not have enough staff to deal with the conversation grant relating to Irish Water. The Department does not have enough staff to do what it has to do, yet there will be seminars, transitional payments and so on.

On JST, lone parents can keep a part-time job. However, as the income disregard is only €60, they will lose money from their incomes. It is nothing short of a con job. I am surprised the Minister of State would peddle this kind of stuff. It is a con of the highest order, as are most other schemes like this. Siblings and parents are trying to support lone parents with young children. What kind of families will we have? In the same breath, the Government talks about marriage equality and equality in everything else, yet we are rushing through legislation to victimise these people. It is regressive and it will impoverish single parents. It beggars belief that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing in the Government. The parties are anxious to introduce liberal legislation yet they are passing regressive legislation in tandem with it, which is an attack on single parent families and their young people. Where will these people go? The Government has offered a few hundred places but 40,000 people will demand them.

If someone currently works less than 19 hours in a part-time job, he or she will have to choose between living on jobseeker's allowance or income from part-time work. That will lead to confusion for the prospective employer and the new employee because no one will know where they are. There will be more schemes and seminars. The self-employed who might employ these people part time do not have time for the Minister's seminars, fancy acronyms and descriptions and, above all, for the codology and tomfoolery she is engaging in. It is sending the fool farther.

Lone parents who receive half rate carer's allowance together with the one-parent family payment must change to full carer's allowance when the youngest child turns seven. This equates a loss of €84 per week. The Taoiseach and Tánaiste said that a charge of €2 per week for water was not much but these people will lose €84 a week. What planet are they living on? Why will the Minister of State not listen to the groups representing one parents if he will not listen to them in his clinics? Only 500 affordable after school places will be made available for approximately 40,000 one-parent families this year. What good will that be? They will be in the Minister of State's clinics and my clinics out of frustration and they will be depressed in doctor's surgeries and so on. In tandem with this, the Government will introduce free GP care for those under the age of six in spite of the fact that there no services for anybody else and the doctors and parents do not want it. Lone parents want this because their children will be sick as they themselves will be sick and depressed. It is a mean-spirited, lousy and shabby attack on single parents and as soon as the Minister of State sits up and smells the coffee in this regard, the better. Groups representing lone parents have said this. Social Justice Ireland and anybody else one cares to listen to are saying it.

The Minister promised she would not go ahead with these changes unless a Scandinavian child care model, about which we hear so much, was in place. We have a scandalous child care service, not a Scandinavian model. Only 500 after school places are on offer but 40,000 lone parents will be affected by these changes. They are deprived and under-privileged enough and have been affected enough by all the cuts. On one occasion the Labour Party called the cuts introduced by the former Minister for Social Welfare, Charlie McCreevy, the "dirty dozen". The Government has introduced countless dozens of cuts. There has been attack after attack on ordinary working class families and single parents, the people the Minister of State's party was proudly set up in my town of Clonmel to represent. However, it has abandoned them because it entered a Thatcherite and Tory-light coalition and got into bed with the Taoiseach and company.

When the Taoiseach was asked a question about agriculture earlier, he talked about a scheme that he was not asked at all about. Ministers have so many spin doctors around them that they do not know what the questions are about and have no answers and, therefore, they give an answer to a different question.

Shame on the Minister of State as far as this change is concerned. Thousands of one-parent families will be pushed into extreme poverty. It is important that we reach out to single parents to fights these cuts. Where are the so-called social democrats with social consciences who are supposed to represent them? The Minister of State has lost it. He has gone so far down in his psyche that he has no hope of regaining it. I would not like to be him approaching doors during the next election. Shame on him if he goes through the lobby to vote in favour of legislation such as this that is being pushed through. It is a disgraceful attack on young families with small children. Many resource centres are under attack and community services are trying to support these people. Together with the withdrawal of CWO services, it is an absurd, disgraceful attack by the so-called Labour Party. It is not entitled to carry that brand anymore. It should hand it up and give it to somebody else.

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