Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am honestly shocked that the words I hear the Minister speak today are the exact same words Senator Kevin Humphreys used when, as Minister of State with responsibility in this area, he introduced the cuts in a lone-parent's allowance when a child reached seven years. The facts belie the policy approach the Minister and her Department seem to be taking. I understand that the Indecon report, which reviewed the effect of the cuts, showed a 50% increase in poverty for those families. I disagree fundamentally with the basic premise that parenting is not work, does not count, is passive and does not matter, and that one has to get people into the workplace to tackle social inclusion. If the Taoiseach said after the recent abortion referendum that the key thing we had to do now was make Ireland the best place in the world to raise all families, what is being done with these most vulnerable families is wrong. It is an opinion which is formed on an economic analysis that caring does not matter and that lone parents are a problem who must be got out of the home and into the workplace at all costs. It is a fundamentally wrong approach and a tragedy that it is applying now, whatever about it applying in 2012 when we had no money. It is ideological and that is why I have a concern. Even at a time of full employment and increasing income, the Government wants to stop supporting parents for an ideological reason.

See this speech in context