The following motion was moved by Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh on Tuesday, 30 June 2015:That Dáil Éireann:— condemns the choices made by the current Government and its predecessor to force lone parent households to disproportionately shoulder the burden of cuts in the wake of an economic crash that was not of their, or their children’s, making; — recognises that the entirely foreseeable consequences of the series of social welfare cuts targeting lone parents has been a rise in the number of lone parents households experiencing enforced deprivation to its current staggering rate of 63 per cent; — rejects the claims made by the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection, and others in Government, that the purpose of the latest impending cut to the One Parent Family Payment scheme is to encourage lone parents to take up work and noting that it is only those lone parents who are actually in work whose weekly income will suffer a significant hit from this Thursday, 2nd July when the cut off age is lowered to just seven years; — recalls the Government’s commitment not to proceed with the cut in the absence of adequate childcare provision; and — calls on the Government, given the absence of such childcare provision, not to proceed with the lowering of the cut-off age to seven years and to instead raise it to twelve years, and to this end commits to sit late to facilitate the passage of the necessary emergency legislation.

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