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

There is nothing personal in this. It is purely the policy that concerns me. We should not discriminate between one parent and another and, in particular, we should not discriminate against lone parents who are in most in need of the State's support. We should not say to them that the way to help them is always through the paid workforce.

It is right for us to leave the parents with the choice for that and, for those parents who do not enter the workforce, to provide the supports we gave as early as the 1970s that fundamentally transformed the experience of being a lone parent in this country. I believe the policy being applied by the Minister is having a deleterious effect on lone parents and their families. All the evidence in the homeless statistics show the poverty figures and the levels of consistent poverty among children of lone parents. This is not a huge budget issue with regard to numbers: I understand that the restoration might cost €40 million or €50 million. It is the policy of the Department; it is not the Minister's policy because it was also there with the Labour Ministers before. I fundamentally disagree with it and I ask the Minister to reconsider whether forcing people into the paid workforce is the best way of providing social protection.

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