Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I do not at all deny the fact that lone parents are the social group most at risk of poverty. They have the highest deprivation rate at 63% and the highest consistent poverty rate at 23%. That is partly as a result of successive cuts by this Government and previous Governments, including cuts to child benefit, rent allowance and maternity allowance. The answer to this poverty, however, is not more cuts and more attacks, which is what the Government is proposing. It follows a Thatcherite logic that says the way to get people out to work is to say they will be cut unless they go to do it. The logic is that those who do not go onto transitional allowance but go onto regular jobseeker's allowance, and whose youngest child is over 13, can now be faced with a situation where, if they refuse, for example, to engage in JobBridge or in Gateway, which would cost them huge amounts of money in terms of child care but yield them very little in terms of income, they can face a penalty rate cut in their social welfare. Is that not the case?

With regard to the evidence, I would take the evidence of the group One Family, which says that of the 95,000 parents in receipt of the one-parent family payment when reform was announced, none has benefited from the reform, approximately 10% are worse off financially as a direct result of being activated and all are worse off due to the cuts. The calls total to One Family's "Ask One Family" helpline is approaching an increase of 50% in the past 15 months. Is that a success?

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