CITY North councillor Maurice Quinlivan has described cuts to the Lone Parent Family allowance, which take effect next week, as “vindictive and unfair”, noting that it would affect women and children significantly and the disadvantaged most of all.
“Thursday June 25 was the last day that lone parents with the youngest child aged seven received the one parent family payment. Next week they will not receive the one parent family, but the transitional jobseekers allowance, which will see many of these parents’ payments cut by €87 per week.
“This cut is a very unfair, vindictive and punitive cut, which will affect a very vulnerable category of people, who are far more likely to suffer disadvantage than the population at large,” commented the Sinn Féin representative.
Cllr Quinlivan added that the cuts affect some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in society and may force even more families into poverty.
He also warned that the cuts will not encourage lone parents to join the workforce due to the lack of affordable childcare and because “it is only those lone parents who are actually in work whose weekly income will suffer a significant hit”.
Cllr Quinlivan concluded: “It will affect women and children disproportionately. Because of choices made by the Tánaiste, lone parent households have been forced to disproportionately shoulder the burden of cuts in the wake of an economic crash that was not of their, or their children’s making. Lone parent households are already experiencing enforced deprivation at a staggering rate of 63 per cent.
“When Fianna Fáil first cut child benefit Labour attacked it without reservation. This is now the 8th successive cut to child benefit, and it is an indictment of Labour’s role in Government.”
