Sir, - Roisin Shortall expressed concern, in her recent interview with Kathryn Holmquist, because she believes that social welfare policy encourages young, lone, dysfunctional parents who lack stable relationships to have babies by rewarding them with financial benefits." If £70 a week and a high-rise flat in an area of extreme squalor and deprivation constitute "reward", one can but wonder at the circumstances experienced before the realisation that pregnancy offered the passport to the aforementioned Nirvana.
Roisin Shortall is incorrect in attributing single parenthood as the reason for child neglect, child malnutrition, underachievement at school, etc. These are the consequences of poverty and as a member of a party which purports to have a socialist agenda, Ms Short hall's failure to make the obvious link with poverty is difficult to fathom.
She appears to absolve policy-makers for their dismal failure to address the increasing inequities in our society by attempting to target the most vulnerable victims of this political neglect. Single teenage pregnancy, like, drug abuse, is a symptom of the years of immoral neglect of the hidden poverty which is present in every town and city in this State.
It would be more useful for Ms Shorthall to encourage her colleagues in government to address the root causes of this pervasive problem, rather than adopting the most extreme elements of discarded right-wing Tory rhetoric. - Yours, etc.,
Richmond Court, Dartry, Dublin 6.