Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am aware of that. The issues I am raising go hand in hand with the Bill.

The Government has targets in place to reduce child poverty. The National Policy Framework for Children and Young People 2014-2020, Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures, commits it to lifting more than 70,000 children out of consistent poverty by 2020, which would constitute a reduction of at least two thirds on the 2011 level.

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Despite this, rates of child poverty have risen sharply in recent years, particularly for poor children in one-parent families. While the Department of Social Protection is moving parents onto payments that will cut their incomes, another section is working to lower child poverty rates. You could not make it up.

The Minister for Social Protection recently attacked Sinn Féin during the debate on our opposition to those cuts. The Minister claimed our party did not have any policies. What kind of policy is it to promise that affordable child care and after-school care would be made available to families, and then do little to nothing to implement that promise while steamrolling ahead with said cuts? We live in a society that has some of the highest child care costs, second only to those in the United States. Already 9,000 lone parents have lost their payment. These changes arrive without the delivery of the Minister's promised Scandinavian child care system. Last month we heard the Labour Party, quite rightly, calling for equality and for fairness, yet when it comes to fairness and equality for children, many of them already experiencing poverty or deprivation, that call rings hollow.

The added burden of the repayment of water charges debt, as outlined in the proposed measures in this Bill, follows the long line of previous measures aimed at the people who can afford the least. The cuts in rent allowance and back-to-school allowance and the loss of the Christmas bonus proceed today. On the Minister's watch we have also witnessed cuts to community employment schemes and student third level grants.

Working part-time for many parents was an option which allowed them to parent their children while avoiding child care costs by working while their children were in school. This is no longer the case for many. As special rapporteur for the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children's committee on child care, I am acutely aware of the lack of affordable, quality child care in this State. One of the big problems for all parents, but most especially lone parents, is this issue. For a person parenting alone, there is just one income available to meet all household, accommodation and child care costs. It explains why so many one-parent families are merely surviving and face the constant threat and fear of homelessness. Most families in emergency accommodation today are one-parent families. Without affordable, quality child care and out-of-school care, the cuts in the one-parent family payment will force those families into further crisis. That we have the shameful figure of 138,000 children living in consistent poverty is evidence that child poverty reduction targets are not working. Measures such as these cuts are not working.

There are more than 215,000 one-parent families in Ireland today of varying backgrounds and circumstances. As One Family has correctly stated, men and women can become lone parents because of separation, divorce or abandonment. Many may have experienced domestic violence, abuse and bereavement and, as I have pointed out, years of cuts have led to one-parent families being those with the highest levels of consistent poverty, with 63% of individuals from these households experiencing one or more forms of deprivation.

One Family also rightly highlighted the critical fact that although the Government's supposed reform process is to connect parents to the labour market and to move them from a passive reliance on social welfare to independence, the reality is that many will have to give up their part-time jobs as they will lose money due to different criteria on their new payment. This will inevitably cause thousands of children to live in deeper levels of poverty.

Since 2008, just before the economic crash, 6.8% of Irish children were living in consistent poverty, a shameful figure in itself. By 2013, that proportion had almost doubled to 11.7%. As some have commented, that adds up to Galway city plus an entire Limerick city of poor children. It is unbelievable and horrific.

Studies have shown that taking a child out of poverty is the single most productive investment a government can make, saving at least seven times what it costs. Child poverty has doubled on the watch of the Government and it is a national scandal, nothing less. The Government has an official target of reducing consistent poverty among children by two thirds by 2020, but what do the current numbers tell us? The child poverty reduction measures are failing. It is time to think again. It is time to rethink the political choices being made. If Government is in any way authentic or serious about reducing this shameful figure of children living in consistent poverty in this State, it should reconsider immediately the measures being introduced in the Civil Debt (Procedures) Bill 2015 before us. Sinn Féin will not support this Bill and will bring forward amendments on Committee Stage.

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