Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his reply. We are dealing with a cohort of people, 11% of whom are living in consistent poverty. The figure for the population as a whole is 8%. We are dealing, therefore, with a particularly poor section of the electorate. The Minister will be aware of the views of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, to which I referred in the question. He will also be aware of the conclusions contained in the Millar report, which states that the changes that have been made have had unintended consequences, that their overall effect is to reduce family income and to discourage people from engaging in activation, whether it be by way of employment, education or training and that the new rules need revision. He will further be aware of the matrix published by Single Parents Acting for the Rights of Kids, SPARK, an organisation representing lone parents, which clearly shows the losses that working lone parents will incur when the back-to-work family dividend runs out. Is the Minister aware that some of the organisations that represent single parents are going to run a campaign to encourage people who are in receipt of the one-parent family payment or family income supplement, FIS, and who are also working to revert from FIS to the jobseeker's transition payment when the family income dividend runs out next year? The latter will put people who are at work back into welfare dependency.

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