John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I note the Minister welcomes the findings of the SILC report. He referred to the overall increase in living conditions. However, he completely brushed over and failed to acknowledge that there is a serious problem with consistent poverty for lone parents, which has increased from 25% in 2014 to 26.2% in 2015. This has to be down to the disastrous changes that were introduced under the previous Fine Gael-Labour Government's watch, under the stewardship of the then Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton.

We have had poverty statistics after poverty statistics and no action. In the Minister's contribution he said a number of times that we should wait for next year's statistics. We have the current statistics which show that poverty levels among lone-parent families are on the rise. I put a straight question to the Minister and expect a straight answer. Does he agree with me that the increase in poverty levels facing lone-parent families is a direct result of the changes introduced by the previous Fine Gael-Labour Party Government? Does he believe it is acceptable that children in lone-parent families should be 3.5 times more likely to live in consistent poverty than a child in a two-parent family?

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