David Norris (Independent)

It is mostly women but it could be men. I take it that this kind of prohibition really concerns the father of the children, or are the lone parents required as a condition to remain celibate for the period of their receipt of the money? I do not see why they should. Sexual activity is a perfectly natural human function. I do not see why it should completely cease just because no one is providing for the welfare of one's children. A lone parent might well be enjoying an active social life and perhaps that is part of a process that would lead to the development of a stable relationship. A lone parent will never have a stable relationship if he or she is simply forbidden to entertain possible partners in that way. The restriction is rather narrow.

To be fair, the Minister said they are the rules and that is the situation that flowed from the existence of the rules but if we want to change them we should look at them again. Perhaps we should not have such a rule in order to reflect the realities of social life in this country. Some might find it regrettable that people behave in that way, but that is the case and at the end of the day it might be the children that are disadvantaged. If, for example, a young and healthy woman has a child and her marriage or relationship has broken down and in order to care properly for that child she gets a lone parent payment, and if then she is completely prevented from developing a relationship in a way that in the 21st century most people do, the child might be deprived of the benefit of having two adults in the household. I will not delay further. That is my last comment on the matter.