Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I challenge the Minister directly on those figures and I hope somebody out there watching has the energy to go and check hers against ours. Our figures are spot on. They are an accurate reflection of what has been lost. They are borne out by the CSO figures which show, contrary to what the Minister just said, that the number of one-parent families suffering deprivation has risen from 49% to 63% since she started her cuts.

10 o’clock

The number living in consistent poverty has risen from 17.4% to 23%, while the number of children living in poverty has increased by 137,000 since the Minister started her cuts, the overwhelming majority of whom are children of lone parents. The Minister is talking absolute nonsense. The cuts have reduced the benefit that lone parents received from working. In 2012, 60% of lone parents were working but now only 36% of them are doing so. The change has had the opposite effect of that claimed by the Minister.

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