Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to tell the Minister of State what a real person wrote to me and many other Deputies. This person says she is a lone parent. The cuts that come into force this week will seriously affect her financially. She has worked part-time since her son was born nine years ago. These cuts will mean that from this week she will be down €62. She has a mortgage of over €600 on a house, whose value has also suffered in the economic crash. She is in negative equity. However, she did not give up and she has worked hard to keep her home and her job.

Unfortunately she does not qualify for the family income supplement because over two weeks she works 36.5 hours, nor is she entitled to the family dividend as she already has a job. Even if she could work more hours, child care is not available and if she were to pay out for child care for the extra day, she would be working solely to pay for that child care. She maintains it makes no sense to have someone else raise her child for that day when there is no financial gain to be had. She asks how these cuts are to benefit already-working lone parents. They have a job and, therefore, they are already in the workforce. The only thing the Government is doing is forcing them to give up their jobs and become unemployed. In her case, she is looking at losing her home. A sum of €62 per week may not seem a great deal to some people but it is all the difference for her. She says it amounts to her entire shopping bill in a given week.

This is the testimony of a real person. This is the real impact this measure will have on this group. One group in Irish society most at risk of poverty comprises households headed by lone parents. I cannot understand why the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection, who is a Labour Party person, would do this. Lone parents will feel this keenly, but society in general will see it as a vulnerable group being picked off. They do not see it as being fair.

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