Sir, – From July 2015, lone parents with children aged seven and older will no longer be entitled to the one-parent family payment. The effects of this provision on working lone parents and those in education are devastating. A lone parent, working 20 hours per week on minimum wage, with one child, will have lost a total of €108 per week when all the measures have been implemented. Lone parents who cannot obtain enough hours to qualify for family supports will be in an even worse situation.
The cuts to the one-parent family payment will force low-income single parents to give up paid work and rely on welfare as they will not be able to work and pay for childcare on low wages. To force low-income lone-parent families to choose between poverty (by living on welfare alone) and in-work poverty, by doing low-wage part-time work, with minimal State support, is both anti-care and anti-family.
The proposal also shows scant regard for the recent research evidence that levels of poverty and deprivation in one-parent families in Ireland have risen significantly since the recession.
The Survey of Income and Living Conditions data (SILC 2013) shows that 23 per cent of one-parent families with dependent children live in consistent poverty, almost three times as many as in the general population (8.2 per cent); this represents an increase of 32 per cent in the consistent poverty rate for such families from 2012 to 2013.
Given that 65 per cent of the poorest children in Ireland already live in one-parent families, cuts to the one-parent family payment will further impoverish the most vulnerable children in the State.
We believe that this reform is being introduced without due consideration of its impact.
Since a similar provision was introduced in the US under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, 1996 (known as the Welfare Reform Act), the effects on poorer women and children have been devastating. The most recent study in the US (Harvard University Radcliffe Public Policy Centre, 2012) found that there was “intractable conflict for poor people trying to care for kids while succeeding on the job. It has taken a huge toll not only on low-income women, but also on their children”.
As 98 per cent of those on the one-parent family payment are women, cuts to this payment is a highly gendered decision. It is a direct attack on poorer mothers and on the welfare of children.
We call on the Government not to proceed with the planned cuts to the one parent family payment through anti-child and anti-care legislation. We urge the Government to take the advice of the all-party Oireachtas committee on the single working age payment, which recommended that no reform of social welfare policy should take place until childcare and other family supports are fully in place. – Yours, etc,
Prof KATHLEEN LYNCH,
Prof JOHN BRANNIGAN,
Dr MARTINA BYRNE,
Dr SARA CANTILLON,
University College Dublin;
Dr BRID CONNOLLY,
Dr LAURENCE COX,
National University
of Ireland, Maynooth;
Dr LINDA CONNOLLY,
University College Cork;
Dr MEL DUFFY,
Dublin City University,
Dr Fergal Finnegan NUIM Dr Paul Garrett NUIG Dr Bernie Grummell NUIM Dr Carmel Hannan UL Dr Sarah Hayden UCC/Goldsmiths College London Dr Mariya Ivancheva UCD Dr Carmen Kuhling UL Dr Máire Leane UCC Prof Ronit Lention (formerly TCD) Dr Sandra McAvoy, UCC Dr Rory McDaid Marino Institute of Education Dr Melanie L. Marshall UCC Prof Gerardine Meaney UCD Dr Anca Minescu UL Dr Anne Mulhall UCD National Women’s Council of Ireland Dr Maeve O’Brien St.Patrick’s College of Education DCU Prof Pat O’Connor UL Dr Micheál O’Flynn UCD Dr Clíona Ó Gallchoir UCC Dr Clare O’Hagan UL Dr Sara O’Sullivan UCD Dr Niamh Pattwell UCD Dr Martin Power UL Dr Anne B Ryan NUIM Ms Mary B Ryan NUIM Ms.Meabh Savage WIT