Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill and I thank Deputy Mitchell for sharing her time.

Sinn Féin advocated for an equality-proofed budget and this was reflected in the proposals we made in our alternative budget for 2017. We said from the start that fairness needed to be at the heart of the budget. We said that given that some financial improvements had happened across some parts of the country, the Government needed to seize that opportunity to begin using money wisely and to reduce the cost of living for people while investing in proper public services. Next year needed to be a year of change and while the budget announced in October included a few tokenistic gestures, it did very little to tackle head on the status quoof our State's ongoing crises.

The increase to the one-parent family payment from January 2017 is welcome, but the overall negative impact of budget 2017 on lone parents, many of whom are on the poverty line, must be acknowledged. As Deputy Mitchell already mentioned, we know that lone parent families are the poorest in Ireland. We know that the consistent poverty rate is 7.9% for children in two-parent families but rises by almost three times, to 22.1%, for children in one-parent families. These children and families are in particular need of assistance.

Sinn Féin proposed to raise the cut off age of the one-parent family payment to 12 years and increase the earnings disregard to €120. The Government, while increasing the payment to €110, kept the cut-off age at seven, which completely ignores the barriers faced by lone parents trying to access work. The decision also refuses to acknowledge that any ten, 11 or 12 year old child, as any parent will know, is no less a child than a seven year old. If anything, the cost to support and provide for a child usually rises as the child grows.

The €500 per year for parents in receipt of the back-to-education allowance is welcome, but when pitted against the high cost of child care for lone parents, particularly when there has been no indication of caps for the services used, one Government allowance is cancelled out by another extortionate cost such as child care.

Low pay and precarious work have become an undeniable part of Ireland's labour market. Unemployment among our youth continues at high levels. The €5 increase to the jobseeker payment is only for those aged 26 years and over. We know that people aged 18 to 24 will receive an increase of €2.70 and those aged 25 will receive an increase of €3.80. In no way does this provide any relief for our young unemployed people who are struggling to survive with increasing living costs year on year. It is somewhat ironic that we are discussing small increases of €2.70, €3.80 or €5 via this Bill in the aftermath of debating a motion last night for an increment of €5,000 for TDs and Senators. The amounts are vastly different. Is it any wonder that the public is annoyed when social welfare recipients need to wait until March 2017 for the extra €5 and the minimum wage has gone up by the grand total of ten cent?

I welcome the Bill’s commitment to increase school meals funding to €47.7 million in 2017 which will see an extra 50,000 children benefit. This cannot distract from the fact that 2,426 children are homeless right now as we debate this tonight. We have been told by many child advocacy groups and agencies that budget 2017 will not make much of a dent in the atrociously high child poverty figures and we are particularly disappointed by the education budget decisions which will do little to help struggling families. While there have been a few positives moves made in this Bill, unfortunately it will not go very far to assist the families who are struggling and in poverty tonight.

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