David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and welcome the opportunity to have this debate. It is not often I disagree with Senator D'Arcy and it is not often I criticise him in this House, but I have to say I found his remarks in regard to the Dunnes Stores workers to be quite flippant. The reality is that those workers are at the moment being exploited by an employer and there are many people on low-hours contracts who do not want to be on them and who should be working full-time. I do not think we should be flippant about it. It is not just the Dunnes Stores workers. There are many workers in the hospitality sector, the tourism sector and in other sectors, such as administration and child care, who work for low pay. It is interesting that the majority of those who are working in low-paid jobs are women. We see from the EUROSTAT figures and its report, from the OECD report, from the TASC report and from all of the reports which look at low pay that the majority of those workers are women.

It is difficult to congratulate this Government on anything it has done for lone parents. What we have seen from this Government since it came into office have been cruel and savage cuts to the most vulnerable in society, in particular lone parents but also their children. It is also impossible not to be cynical about its crude and dysfunctional so-called activation measures which brutally compel lone parents to seek employment. Budget after budget, from the moment this Government took office, it has targeted lone-parent families.I sat in this Chamber when the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, talked about changes to lone parent payments whereby the payment would cease when the child was aged over seven years. I was here when she said she would not follow through on the proposal unless there was serious investment in child care to provide proper, affordable and accessible child care for all citizens. She went ahead anyway, although we have had nothing like the investment in child care that we need. Child care is the most significant barrier for many lone parents, particularly women but some men also. Although it is one of the most serious issues, the Government has done little to deal with it. The Minister disallowed lone parents on community employment schemes from retaining a partial payment from the one-parent family scheme. She eliminated the half-rate payments lone parents had been able to receive on certain social insurance schemes. She abolished the six-month transitional OPF payment and ended the disregard for income in respect of home help, which was work in which many lone parents engaged. She cut the earnings disregard for lone parents in low-paid employment from €146.50 to €90. Lone parents were also hit by her cuts to the fuel allowance, the hike in the contribution towards rent supplement, and cuts to the back to school clothing and footwear allowance and child benefit.

Almost all the secondary benefit cuts the Government has made have primarily hit women and lone parents. In budget after budget and cut after cut, those who had the least to give and had nothing to do with causing the economic crisis were hit. Lone parents are a very good example of this. The Tánaiste has continued to reduce the cut-off age for the OPF payment scheme and intends dropping it to just seven years in July. The reduction in the cut-off age to seven years will see almost 12,000 lone parents suffer a financial loss of up to €86 per week, which is a huge amount of money for lone parents, which they cannot afford to lose. Some 6,400 lone parents will lose up to €36.50 per week, 4,500 lone parents will lose up to €57 per week and 800 lone parents who are also carers will lose a staggering €86 per week. The only lone parents who will suffer an immediate financial loss from the move are those who are already in work.

Although the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection is aware of all this, she continues to pretend that the reason for her crusade against lone parents is that she wants them to move into work. This is a very crude way for the Minister to go about it. Although many lone parents would love to be able to work and want to get back into employment, the jobs are not there. They are the very people who go into low-paid jobs. There is a huge amount of in-work poverty and many poverty traps, about which we spoke earlier today. When they return to work, they lose many of the benefits and social security supports they had, and it does not pay. There was a time when getting a job was the best route out of poverty. However, a recent OECD report showed that 20% of workers in the State are in low-paid jobs, and 14% of workers, mainly women, suffer from multiple deprivation and in-work poverty. These are staggering figures.

Senator Jim D’Arcy talked about looking forward, and we hear from the Government about economic recovery. We should celebrate economic recovery, which we all want. We want as much wealth as possible. There is no quarrel about it. The quarrel is about what we do with the money when we have it. In the previous budget, the Government cut the top rate of tax by 1% for those who needed it least, while doing precious little for those who have borne the brunt of savage cut after cut. This is the unfairness many people see in the Government’s policy choices.

Although it gives nobody any pleasure to criticise the Government, it is very difficult to commend the Government or say anything good about what it has done for lone parents when the reality is the opposite. Lone parents have been targeted and penalised, and have suffered and borne the brunt of cut after cut by the Government. If we are to have a recovery and celebrate it, and if the Government wants people to feel the effects of it, we could target lone parents, lift them out of poverty and put in place measures that deal with the reality of their lives. I suggest the Government do this in the next budget as a priority.