Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Tomorrow the Government is introducing changes to the one-parent payment which will have two effects. It will reduce the minimum age of eligibility to seven years for children and it will reduce the income disregard for those transitioning by 30%. This means that lone parents will have up to €140 less per week because of the measures the Government is bringing in tomorrow. This policy was conceived in an era of full and flexible employment. Neither of those conditions apply today.

The Tánaiste gave an absolute guarantee that this would not be done until a Scandinavian level of child care was in Ireland. It is not. The Government maintains that these measures are being brought in to empower these parents, 98% of whom are women. They will not. What they will do is force these parents out of work, force more parents and their children into poverty and lock them into poverty traps. That is what is happening tomorrow morning.

The Government estimates that these measures will save approximately €12 million this year. They will not. The social and economic ramifications of what this Government is doing tomorrow morning will cost this State a fortune in human suffering and money. I offer a real example. It relates to a lady called Sandra, who is a lone parent in Wicklow. She works part-time. She is in college and is obviously a parent. She receives the family income supplement, the one-parent payment and wages. After rent, she has €326 per week for her household. Tomorrow morning that €326 is going to fall by almost 30%. This is what will happen to her. She will have to drop out of college, out of work and she will have to stay at home.

That is what is actually happening. It is the very worst and most stupid, mean, vindictive, regressive social policy that I have seen from the Government. It is incumbent on Labour Party Deputies, at least, to talk to their Ministers this evening and ask whether this can be stopped.

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