John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister's response. She put out a press statement after the publication of the SILC report and referred to it again this morning but she specifically left out any mention of lone parents because it is an increase and that goes against the narrative that everything is on the up. It certainly is not on the up for lone parents. A 4% increase in the at-risk-of-poverty rate is a huge increase and this is borne out in the Indecon report published last October so there is clearly a problem here that is not being addressed.

I agree that the solution to this is getting people back into the workforce but there are huge barriers, particularly for lone parents. One of the Minister's predecessors, Deputy Burton, who made the changes that directly impacted lone parents, said she would not introduce those changes until we had affordable child care, which is a huge barrier to getting lone parents in particular back into the workforce. This has not been addressed and will not be addressed - certainly by this Government. Outside of that, what specific measures are being taken for children in lone parent families to ensure they are not in that poverty trap?

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