Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have listened to most of the debate last night and tonight. To be honest, I have found some of the contributions from the Government benches bizarre. I have heard words such as "incentives", "encourage" and "immediate incentives to find extra work". This is the rationale for the policy changes the Government is bringing forward. I looked at the Government's amendment to our motion. It highlights a number of examples, such as:

— a lone parent with one child who has no work will receive on a jobseeker's payment almost €218 per week;

— if they work 19 hours at the national minimum wage they will receive on top of their wages €235 per week between FIS and the back to work family dividend – a total family income of €400 per week...

The amendment goes through all of the different categories up to persons with four children. However, it does not give examples of people who are working less than 19 hours a week and one has to wonder why that is. The reality is that if a person is working less than 19 hours and not in receipt of family income supplement, he or she will be financially worse off under this policy. There are no ifs or buts about this - it is a fact.

A young woman visited my office on Monday who was transitioning to the new payment. She will be down €84 per week, despite the fact that she is working. She was listening to Leaders' Questions last week and heard the Taoiseach say there was now an incentive to get back to work. In her case, as she is already working part-time but not for 19 hours a week, there is said to be an incentive for this young mother with one child to increase her hours. She does not need an incentive to work more hours or an incentive such as this to get out of poverty. She has all of the incentives she will ever need without the Government bringing in a policy such as this. She has bills coming in through her door every day; she needs to keep a roof over her head and to put food on her table. These are the only incentives this mother and many other lone-parent families need.

Deputy Catherine Byrne went through the figures. She said X number of people were going to be better off under this scheme and that 6,000 would have an immediate incentive to increase their hours. What she should have said was that 6,000 people would see an immediate reduction in their income because that is what is happening. It is all spin. It is like the Government's amendment in that it does not give us the example of people who are working less than 19 hours a week, who do not qualify for family income supplement and who will be €80 to €100 per week worse off. The woman who came into my office on Monday in tears will be down €84 per week. As her landlord recently put up her rent, she cannot afford to keep a roof over her head because of a Government policy which has been introduced by a Labour Party Minister. She is effectively going to become homeless. She cannot be given a council house by the local authority because in Cork city there are over 8,000 families awaiting council housing and we are allocating just 30 to 50 houses a month.

That young lady will be homeless in a couple of weeks. She cannot afford to keep a roof over her head, because the Government has done nothing to control rents. To make matters worse, it is now introducing a policy that will penalise her because she can only get from ten to 12 hours work per week. It is not that she wants to work only ten to 12 hours a week. She would gladly work far more than that but she cannot get the hours. There is a complete failure on the part of Government to acknowledge that. Deputies Seán Kyne and Catherine Byrne mentioned this situation.

Deputy Joe Costello made a bizarre statement about "liberating mothers from their children", but I do not know what that means. If wanting to liberate mothers from their children is the type of thinking going on within the Labour Party, is it any wonder we are getting harebrained policies such as this? We do not want to liberate women from their children. We want to liberate women from poverty. The Minister's policy does not do this.

The figures indicate that at any time from half to two thirds of homeless families living in emergency accommodation are one-parent families. Over 1,000 children in emergency accommodation in Dublin are in one-parent families and I guarantee that this number will increase as a result of this policy. I just gave an example of a woman who was in my office on Monday who will be homeless. She is down €84 per week. She cannot get more hours, though she has begged for extra hours. Her landlord has raised her rent. He is not going to drop her rent because she is down €84 per week. When she moves out because she cannot afford to pay him he will have somebody else who will come and pay what he is looking for, because the Government has failed to do anything in regard to rents also.

Much has been said about child care and I listened to contributions from the Government benches on this issue. The main support necessary to enable lone parents to return to education and full-time work is access to a quality, affordable child care system. We do not have such a system in this State. I remember Deputy Joan Burton standing up in this Chamber and giving a solemn promise that she would not proceed with these changes until adequate child care facilities and provisions were in place. However, like every other promise the Labour Party has made in regard to lone parents, carers and students this promise has been broken.

I do not know Deputy Joe Costello very well, but I would like to go canvassing in his area with him for the general election to see what answer he gets. If a Labour Party person tells me this measure is a good one that will liberate mothers from their children and that this is doing them a favour, I dread to think what answer he will be given on the doorsteps. There was some mention of the situation in the Six Counties and of this being applied to children of five years of age. However, people fail to recognise that this is not acceptable to us either as a party.

When the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, visited the North recently she was not concerned about children living in poverty within the Six Counties. She sat on her hands and kept her mouth shut and did not try to negotiate a deal which would have enriched the lives of citizens of this island. She went up and sat and said nothing. I do not know if the Minister of State was there, but he knows that is a fact. What the Joan Burton fails to recognise is -----

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