Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is a point repeated so often that it almost loses all meaning, namely, that we judge a state by how it looks after its most vulnerable citizens. However, that is really a power principle and should be the basic bar by which we judge all our decisions in politics, namely, whether a measure hurts those who have least or target those who have been unfairly targeted already, and whether it is fair.

Some on the other side of this House might have us believe that seeking to be fair is not being realistic because they have decided to take the easy option and cannot countenance that there could be another way. If the Labour Party were to think like that, then its members would have to look inside themselves and realise they are a pointless adjunct to Fine Gael, and that they have once again wrestled with their conscience and their conscience has lost. If Labour Party members were to do that, they would truly see the hurt they are causing by those kinds of decision. The Government’s policy is unfair. It hurts those who have the least and it again targets those who have already been targeted either in budget cuts or the stigma successive Governments have created for single parents.

As the motion states, the policy of the Government and the Fianna Fáil Government which preceded it was to load the burden of the banking crisis onto the shoulders of working class people who were desperately trying to keep their jobs, pay their rent, keep their home and feed and clothe their children. No family was more vulnerable to the cuts, more hurt and even vilified than the single-parent families of this State. This approach has seen an unprecedented and unconscionable rise in deprivation levels of 63%. One could ask what exactly that means, and what is the truly horrible reality behind that figure for families struggling every day. The deprivation indicators are shockingly basic. For some people it is hard to imagine there are people raising families in such conditions, but there are. Their situation is not punishment for some wrongdoing but simply a consequence of the unequal society presided over by successive right-wing Governments more concerned with the needs of Ireland’s own oligarchs than child poverty.

Despite that, the Government plans to cut more from the one-parent family payment scheme. This time the Tánaiste has tried to spin the lie the underlying intention is to get single parents back to work. She knows that is not the true intention of the cut. One would have to have been living under a rock for the past four years to believe that nonsense. This State is the second worst country for low-paid jobs in the developed world. We have no real State support for child care and have consistently cut social supports for unemployed and low-income families over the past seven years. One could ask how the parents of young children hope to go back to jobs that either do not exist or pay next to nothing when it will mean a loss of vital and basic supports.

What is even more disgusting about the claim by the Government is that it implies that single parents are sitting at home living off the fat of land, having a great old time with their expensive camera phones and flat screen televisions while refusing to do a day’s work. Those parents are some of the hardest working people in the country because they have the task of not only raising their children but doing it with everything against them, including the Government and the so-called Labour Party.

The attitude the Government has taken to working class families is an absolute disgrace, which bears no resemblance to the reality of what they are dealing with on daily basis. As Deputy Mary Lou McDonald said last week and to the Tánaiste tonight, she and her Government are giving two fingers to those struggling families. The Government is saying it does not care how hard it is, how little one has or how much it has taken already, they are an easy target and the Government will use them so it does not have to tackle the powerful and the elites who have never paid their fair share.

In the same way that single parents were vilified, scape-goated and abused by previous Governments, the Government continues with the approach but does it wrapped in a veil to pretend it is all being done for the good of those affected. That is a shame on the Tánaiste, and a shame on the Labour Party. They have given two fingers to working class families, and in doing so, two fingers to everything they claim to represent.

The Tánaiste’s colleague, Deputy Robert Dowds, said on “Tonight with Vincent Browne” last night that he had very serious problems with the scheme. We will wait and see where he stands. He obviously has very serious concerns, as does everyone else. The decision the Tánaiste has made is an absolute disgrace.

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