Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Many of them come from lone parent families. This represents approximately the population of the five seat constituency in Donegal. In the Republic, the number of children living in consistent poverty is the same as the population of the constituency of Donegal. This is a shame. I am not throwing political snowballs across the room, but all of us collectively need to stamp it out. One way of doing this is to ensure that particularly those most in danger of child poverty, those children growing up in lone parent families, are protected by the State. It has an obligation as guardian of those children and supporter of lone parent families to support this family dynamic and unit. Unfortunately, the cut to this payment from a public policy perspective does not do this. It is wrong.

The measure will save some money in the biggest spending Department in the State, but the money saved is a drop in the ocean in the overall amount of money being saved. A total of 15,000 parents had already been affected by the end of June and an additional 40,000 families have been affected since 2 July. This is absolutely and totally wrong. As has been stated, on 18 April 2012 the Tánaiste promised not to proceed with the legislation unless a credible affordable Scandinavian child care system was in place. Initially, the Department announced 6,000 places, which fell considerably short of the places needed. At a Department of Social Protection briefing in January, it was announced only 500 such child care places would be available.That is far short of the Scandinavian child care system the Tánaiste was talking about back in 2012. In fact, Ireland has the worst child care system in the developed world.