Mary White (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I was not able to attend myself but yesterday the Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection heard senior people in the ESRI speak about the cost of child care prohibiting parents, in particular single parents, from getting back to work. I am hosting a public forum on child care challenges on 13 February in Sandyford community centre. The whole issue of child care is still under the radar and many other issues related to child care are not being vented.

We heard all the praise the Government got from Madame Lagarde on how brave we are, etc. but we really must highlight the Government's failure to protect so many people who are in poverty. Yesterday the CSO launched its Survey on Income and Living Conditions 2013. Some 1 million people are living in poverty. That is a key issue for this House to address and we have an opportunity to do so.

On Saturday last, I attended a conference held by Single Parents Acting for the Rights of Kids, SPARK, and I was quite taken aback to know that there are 40,000 single-parent families. The figures the CSO announced yesterday are no surprise to SPARK because yesterday the Department of Social Protection was preparing to send out 58,000 letters to one-parent families informing them of changes which will happen in July and will result in a further loss of €86 per week for one-parent families. I do not and how the Minister, Deputy Burton, can call herself a Minister for Social Protection because she is taking a brutal sledgehammer approach to dealing with lone parents. I would like to know what it is about. SPARK is focusing on the whole issue of kids because the single-parent issue on its own is not getting the traction required. That organisation believes the cuts and changes introduced in budget 2012 led directly to increased poverty among one-parent families, which came through very blatantly in the CSO report yesterday.

I call for an urgent debate on the CSO Survey on Income and Living Conditions 2013 and I support this group, SPARK, which is an outstanding, articulate and brilliant group. I am putting my heart and soul into helping it.