Changes to One Parent Family Payment the latest episode in a shameful history of failing lone parents

Published: Thursday, July 02, 2015

The National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) calls on the Government to reverse today’s mass transition from the One Parent Family payment, pending the delivery of affordable, accessible childcare, as well as decent work and decent training for work.

Alice-Mary Higgins, Policy Officer with NWCI said,

“CSO figures showing 63% deprivation levels and shocking child poverty levels among one parent families are a clear alarm bell, warning the Government  that they need to put the brakes on measures which will cut the incomes of many already struggling  lone parents. The Department of Social Protection urgently needs to take a step back and review its policies in consultation with the families themselves.”

“The transition due to be implemented today, July 2nd, will have devastating consequences for 30,000 women across Ireland.  It is particularly unacceptable that the Government should go ahead with this cut when it has so shamefully failed to deliver on long- promised childcare.  Ireland now lags behind every country in Europe when it comes to childcare and spends less than half of the OECD average on early childhood care and education.  Pushing 30,000 more women into a system with just 800 afterschool places simply does not add up.”

She continued, 

“Women who are parenting alone want new opportunities and access to better standards of living. However, the way to open those opportunities is through better supports not punitive cutbacks. NWCI is urging the Government to ensure that Budget 2016 delivers publicly subsidised childcare and opens up more flexible educational and training opportunities to lone parents on a voluntary basis. Without these building blocks, today’s transition will push women, who have already borne the brunt of many regressive cutbacks, further into uncertainty. The many seven year olds whose mothers will lose their One Parent Family Payment  today were born in 2008,into recession, and they are now being hit by yet another austerity policy.”

“Many lone parents want to work, almost half are already working - but they want decent work and decent wages. They don’t want to be pushed from poverty into in-work poverty or take jobs with no-fixed hours which make planning for care impossible.  Ireland is facing a recognised crisis in precarious work which needs a systematic response from Government.  The task of ‘negotiating’ decent working conditions or bridging the gap between the 19 hours needed for FIS and the rapidly spread of 15 hour contracts cannot be placed on the shoulders of individual mothers.”

Alice-Mary Higgins concluded,

“The hard fact is that Government policies over recent years have actually driven many lone parents out of work. The Department of Social Protection recognised this when they suspended further reductions to the Income Disregard earlier this year.  They now need to go further and restore that  Income Disregard to previous levels.  The Government also needs to deliver decent work and decent training for work along with affordable, accessible, quality, childcare. Until these essential supports are in place, access to One Parent Family Payments must be immediately restored.”

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For more information, please contact Silke Paasche, Head of Communications, NWCI, Tel. 085 858 9104.