Michael McCarthy (Labour)

I thank the Minister for making the telling and important point that only 2% of lone parents are teenagers. There has been an orchestrated campaign in this regard led by senior academics and journalists who know better — it is not that they should know better, they do know better. It has been led in many respects by an engineer. Engineers know a lot about a certain subject but a professor emeritus of engineering in one of our universities is not an authority on lone parents. Nor should one of the broadsheets, The Irish Times, be allowed to get away with publishing last year the vile article by a columnist attacking lone parents. It used derogatory terms to stigmatise a group of people and was full of inaccuracies. The author of the article knew and knows better.

I am glad the Minister has reiterated this important statistic. We must be mindful in regard to the debate on lone parents that only 2% are in the teenage category. The other factors which result in lone parenthood are death, desertion, imprisonment of spouses and so on. It is not just one issue. I commend the Minister on raising this important statistic.