Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend Dr. Muldoon and his staff on the work they are doing. Poverty strikes at the heart of people's lives and is central to the issues we need to resolve in our country. Last Monday, I visited a family in my constituency whose situation is an example of the gaps that exist in the system. There are two small children in this family and the mother has a serious problem with her back that prevents her from functioning properly and leaves her unable to work. She cannot get disability benefit because, while she worked at different times, she did not always get stamps and does not have enough of them to qualify. She applied for disability allowance but when the total was added up, comprising her payment of €203, plus €134 for the other adult in the house and €38 each for the two children, it came to €413. As her husband earns €30 more than that, she cannot get any payment. I suggested to her that the working family payment was another option. However, her husband is a bread delivery man.

He gets up at 2 a.m. to deliver bread so that he can be home early in the day to help her with the children because she is unable to manage with them. As he is self-employed, he cannot get the working family supplement. There are significant gaps. I regularly come across this issue with people who are doing their best to survive but find the system is stacked against them everywhere they turn. I understand why there have to be rules and limits but at the same time there has to be an appreciation of the real experience of people's lives. I looked at the two small children running around the sitting room and playing and I wondered what hope they will have in ten years' time if they grow up in that kind of poverty. This mother and the rest of the family are working so hard but are struggling to pay the rent, to manage and to survive. The problem is that children are the victims in all of this because poverty is something that affects them most. I find it mainly affects families such as that, people who are working and trying hard but are falling just short. The Government needs to do more to step up to ensure it fills those gaps and provides for those families.

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