Des O'Grady
OPINION Lone parent households have now been singled out by Labour Party Minister Joan Burton for extra pain.
From Monday 16 January the government has removed concurrent payments for new participants in Community Employment schemes and cut the qualified child payment for existing lone parent CE participants by €29.80 per child per week.
This means that a lone parent taking up a CE place from now on will not receive any extra social welfare payments.
As well as this people who are presently employed on a CE scheme receiving any Lone-Parent Family Social Welfare Payment will loose up to 2 qualified child payments totaling €59.60.
Those special arrangements for lone parents were the only supports that made it possible for many of them to take up employment in CE schemes.
The effect of these cuts will be to make participation in CE unaffordable for many lone parents and this will have devastating effects for their household budgets and self-esteem.
According to official statistics lone parents are Ireland’s poorest families and have already been hit with deep cuts to their social welfare payments in the last three budgets.
This disgraceful decision to abolish family payments for those who take up Community Employment will mean fewer and fewer lone parents will be able to move from welfare to work, thus consigning already disadvantaged families to worsening poverty and deprivation.
Sinn Féin’s fully-costed pre-budget submission demonstrated that these cuts are not necessary.
I am now calling on Government TDs, but especially on Labour Party TDs, to pressurise the Minister to rescind these savage cuts to lone parents immediately.
Des O’Grady
Sinn Féin
I am on a CE scheme. I am a lone parent with 3 children ranging in ages from 19 to 2 years old.
I have always either worked or studied since I left school. The longest I have been ‘idle’ was from 2008 – 2011. I felt so lucky when I found a part time job near to where I lived under the CE scheme.
Having this job means I can balance work and family life. I know jobs are hard got at the moment, but I would not like to work full time, paying someone else to rear my child. And having a job is amazing for my self esteem. Admittedly, the money is not great, but the job means more than just money to me.
But it looks as if I won’t have a job soon. There are discussions about cutting the payments even further. Which will mean that not only would I be as well off NOT working, it would actually cost me money to come to work. I am terrified, as financially at the moment there is no money to spare, I am going to be in huge debt when my current contract ends.
I thought the minister wanted Lone Parents to go out and work? Why is the government making it impossible for us to do so? What can be done to change their minds?
Anyone who can work SHOULD work. There is plenty of work available. Heritage centers, Tidy Towns… lots of ‘not for profit’ organisations committed to improving the community. But these places can only exist with the support of wages from CE schemes.
Kids from One Parent families are not disadvantaged because they are from one parent families… they are disadvantaged because they are most likely poorer than their 2 parent counterparts.
And poverty breeds poverty.
Yours in fear,
Grace Cowley