Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I want first to pay tribute to SPARK, a group which campaigns for lone parents.

I pay tribute to all the women and to the men - there are some - who are involved. I recognise the tremendous work they have done in highlighting, through the media and by lobbying politicians in this House, inequality and discrimination against lone parents. My secretary, Ms Leah Speight, is one of the founding members of SPARK. She has contributed significantly to the speech I am about to make.

I welcome the report and the work thereon by my colleagues in the committee. I am now a member of the committee but was not when the work was done. We welcome the overall shift in the tone and language used when discussing lone parents in this House. The recommendations in the report should be supported. We believe they should be a starting point in beginning to reverse the failed policies of previous Governments. They should be reviewed regularly with an intention to improve policies and supports for lone parents.

Poverty rates among lone parents are the highest in the country and are at an all-time high. There are reasons for this but it is no accident that lone parents suffer from the highest rate of deprivation, at 50.1%, and that they show a consistent poverty rate of 24.6% in the most recent EU SILC report, published in 2016. Since this report was issued, an ESRI report was published, two weeks ago. I am sure others referred to it. It shows that out of 11 EU countries, Ireland had the highest persistent deprivation gap between lone parent adults and disabled adults by comparison with the general population. Lone parents had the highest persistent deprivation rate, 26 percentage points higher than for any other adult.

Time after time, we have had reports showing that lone parents and their children suffer the highest consistent poverty and deprivation rates. We have a long list of statistics to pull from. I will not focus on them too much as others have done so. The persistent trend is because of politicians, the media, our culture and the general stigmatisation of lone parents throughout the history of this country.

I do not believe the language change in the report reflects a change on the part of the Government or officials in the Department but we must welcome it as a beginning. As has been said, it is to be improved upon and updated all the time.

At the time of the announcement that Ireland was in recession in 2008, the idea of a gravy-train ride for lone parents was used by shock jockeys on radio and in many media outlets to suggest lone parents were having a great time and just having children for the sake of getting lots of money. That was the mantra that was being aired all the time. Instead of the then Minister responsible for social protection, Mary Hanafin, attributing the recession to the greed of bankers, developers and others, she reasserted the family role in her Department. She said in an article in the Sunday Independentin July 2008 that a lone parent on benefits has no incentive to get into a steady relationship, marry or obtain employment. Her focus was on families and family values and, in her words, not on disadvantaged areas, as had been the case in the past. One often hears locally that families get no attention and that lone parents get all the attention but statistics on poverty and living standards do not show this is the outcome. This is tied in with the mantra that recipients of social welfare and the poor, particularly lone parents, were receiving too much and that their lifestyle choices were sometimes the reason the country was suffering from recession. Clearly, that is nonsense. It is terrible media propaganda.

In September 2011, before budget 2012, a newspaper report was published claiming a quarter of lone parents' claims were fundamentally fraudulent. The article stated a shocking new report from the Department of Social Protection revealed fraudulent claims were costing the taxpayer millions each year. The current Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, called at the time for zero tolerance towards fraudsters, whom he said were "taking the taxpayer for a ride". In July 2012, after budget 2012 was implemented and after a sustained attack on lone parents, it was revealed in a fraud-and-error report inspection of 1,000 lone parent files that only 71 out of 1,000 payments were terminated due to fraud. Government politicians, in collusion with some officials in the Department, entertained by the media, had already painted the picture that they wanted lone parents to be viewed as fraudulent. That has to end. The Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection is shaking her head in disgust. I welcome that because it has been for too long that politicians, media and the culture in this country have scapegoated lone parents and their children.

I have some statements from politicians that back up what I am saying. They comprise just a small example of the stereotyping that lone parents have had to listen to and endure. Often there have been radio phone-ins on stations such as 4FM, which held a twitter poll asking whether the State makes it too easy to be a single mother. The report, a welcome start, should begin to turn the tide against the discriminatory culture that exists right across the country.

There is no doubt but that there was co-operation to try to paint lone parents in this matter. Now we really have to reject that and begin to say there was disgraceful treatment of lone parents throughout the history of the State. As has been said by Deputy O'Reilly, the activity of Deputy Joan Burton in particular, as Minster for Social Protection, in getting rid of the income disregard was very negative, not just in terms of its perception but in terms of the impact on the material lives of lone-parent families.

Let me give one example from the report, namely, the proposal to restore the income disregard to €147.60. This is not a radical proposal. The income disregard in 1997 was £115, which converts to €146. Despite the income disregard never having increased with inflation since 1997, it was cut and is now €110. Therefore, asking for it to be restored to €147.60, the rate in 1997, is not a big ask. Bearing in mind the consumer price index, a basket of goods that cost €147 in January 1997 would cost €217 today. In other words, the payment does not keep up with inflation or the increases in the cost of living. Instead of improving the lot of lone parents, the income disregard put them way back. The attempt to address that is falling way below what it should be. There should now be an income disregard of a minimum €217 for lone parents. This is what the committee needs to be considering and what we need to be asking the House to approve. It is certainly not radical.

The committee has put a lot of work into this report. This is the first time that the real lives of lone parents trying to juggle work, parental responsibilities, house duties, meeting child care costs, employment and facing educational barriers have been discussed alongside policy. I ask that this report not be left to one side, on top of the others on child poverty etc. that are piling up with no action being taken. In this House, we have had to look honestly at what the State did to women and children right back to the time of the Magdalene laundries and the time of the Tuam babies. I do not know how many times we have referred to this each week since I became a Deputy. It very much forms part of the debate in the lead-up to the referendum on the eighth amendment. As I stated previously in this House, having a choice to have a termination should also mean one has a choice to have a child. If women face a life of poverty, discrimination and stigmatisation, it makes it very hard for them to make the latter choice.

Lone Parents and their children are living in poverty. They have the highest rate of consistent poverty in the State. We need a big shift in this House and in society to set the current thinking aside and change it for those who are being discriminated against and stereotyped.

I thank my colleagues on the committee for the report and I thank the Minister. I welcome the report and hope and believe that the Deputies present, if they mean what they say tonight, will keep the pressure up and that it will be the beginning of a progression towards changing the lives of lone parents and their children in a meaningful way and towards ensuring we do not return to stigmatisation and discrimination.

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