Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for her interest in the issue. I am glad that parties in this House should actually want to debate how, as a country, we help lone parents to move from a situation where, if they are relying on a social welfare income, they are seriously at risk of poverty. In 2003 and 2004, at the height of the Celtic tiger and Fianna Fáil's rule in this country, lone parents were at a risk of poverty of somewhere between 30% and 33%. Changes in policy mean that has now gone down to 23% because, since we instituted this change over two years ago - this is the third year of the change - lone parents' risk of being in consistent poverty has reduced. It is a very high figure at 23% but, during Fianna Fáil's high years, it had been at 30% and 33%, ten points higher. If a lone parent is not working, their risk of poverty is over 40% but, if they are at work, particularly if they have family income supplement, their risk of consistent poverty falls below 10%. I find the 10% unacceptable but I find it infinitely better than either the 33% of Fianna Fáil or the current rate this Government has achieved, and which the Deputy's party spokesperson on social welfare spoke about in his speech the day before yesterday.

Let us be clear on what the objective of this Government is. It is to get a group of people parenting with their children on their own to a situation where their risk and experience of poverty is dramatically reduced. We have done that, as the Deputy well knows from the information she has from the Department, by creating a transition period of over seven years to a lone parent returning to work. That is in recognition, as I told the Sinn Féin spokesman, of the fact we in Ireland do not at this point in time have the kind of child care system to which I certainly aspire.

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