Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I have raised this issue numerous times with the Minister and I do not think he is for turning. The finding of the EU SILC report is quite explicit. One parent households in Ireland have suffered immeasurably. Two points in particular are damning for this country and previous Governments. In 2008 consistent poverty for lone parents was 17.8%. In 2015, that shot up to 26.2%. The latter was compounded by budgets from the Minister’s Government between 2012 and 2014 which took 3.5 times more from the bottom 40% of the population than from the top 30%. This is ideological warfare by the Minister’s party and Fianna Fáil. I want the Minister to comment on that.

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