Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is working lone parents whom the Minister is hurting most, the very ones she says she wants to incentivise. Is she telling the House that the child care provisions to which she has referred constitute a Scandinavian-type child care system? If not, she is breaking the promise she made to the House on 18 April 2012.

Last evening the Minister of State at the Department of Social Protection told the House that discussions were ongoing between his Department and the Department of Education and Skills on lone parents who had accessed or wanted to access the education system and that these discussions might result in some changes to the proposals which had been made. I ask the Minister to confirm that this is the case because there are many very worried people, not just those who want to access the education system but also lone parents already in the system who are worried that the proposed changes will force them to withdraw from the education system.

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