This week, the Tánaiste will take up to €87 a week from more than 10,000 single parent families. This is the eighth successive cut she has inflicted on lone-parent families. The vast majority of these parents, as she knows, are women. Many are in low-paid and insecure jobs, many more are living in or at risk of poverty, and all struggle to raise their children in challenging circumstances.

In 2012, the Tánaiste promised that this cut was dependent on "there being a system of safe, affordable and accessible child care in place, similar to what is found in the Scandinavian countries". She said very definitively that without affordable and accessible child care, "the measure will not proceed". The average cost of child care is currently €167 a week, and higher again in Dublin. In many communities, child care is just not available. When Fianna Fáil cut child benefit, the Tánaiste said this was anti-woman and her party said it highlighted the lack of influence of women in Cabinet. Yet, here we are, with Deputy Burton in government and second in command, introducing a measure that is both anti-woman and anti-child.

Why has the Tánaiste broken her solemn commitment that, in the absence of accessible and affordable child care, she would not introduce this cut? Will she, even at this late stage, reverse this cruel and unjust decision to push thousands of one-parent families into poverty?

I thank the Deputy for her interest in the issue. I am glad that parties in this House should actually want to debate how, as a country, we help lone parents to move from a situation where, if they are relying on a social welfare income, they are seriously at risk of poverty. In 2003 and 2004, at the height of the Celtic tiger and Fianna Fáil's rule in this country, lone parents were at a risk of poverty of somewhere between 30% and 33%. Changes in policy mean that has now gone down to 23% because, since we instituted this change over two years ago, this being the third year of the change, lone parents' risk of being in consistent poverty has reduced. It is a very high figure at 23% but, during Fianna Fáil's high years, it had been at 30% and 33%, ten points higher. If a lone parent is not working, their risk of poverty is over 40% but if they are at work, particularly if they have family income supplement, their risk of consistent poverty falls below 10%. I find the 10% unacceptable but I find it infinitely better than either the 33% of Fianna Fáil or the current rate this Government has achieved, and which the Deputy's party spokesperson on social welfare spoke about in his speech the day before yesterday.

Let us be clear on what the objective of this Government is. It is to get a group of people parenting with their children on their own to a situation where their risk and experience of poverty is dramatically reduced. We have done that, as the Deputy well knows from the information she has from the Department, by creating a transition period of over seven years to a lone parent returning to work. That is in recognition, as I told the Sinn Féin spokesman, of the fact we in Ireland do not at this point in time have the kind of child care system to which I certainly aspire.

Precisely.

I did that in the context that, although, as a Government, we are spending €260 million this year on child care and providing for 100,000 children, it is still not enough. I am very ambitious to go further. That is what we are spending and there is a seven-year transition.

In the North of Ireland, where the Deputy's party is in power-----

Here it comes.

-----the transition age is five years of age and the supports for families are significantly smaller than they are here, as the Deputy is aware. What we all need in this country is to work together, to work with employers, with education institutions and, in particular, with community organisations to help lone parents, who work so hard to make the transition to paid employment, of a significant amount in order that-----

Sorry, Tánaiste, you are over time.

-----for a lone parent with one child, their income on social welfare is €218. If they get 19 hours of work and move to family income supplement, their income goes up to €400 a week. I would like it to be higher than that but that is a very good start in helping to get people out of poverty.

I thank the Tánaiste for that. She might consider raising her concerns on issues around the North of Ireland the next time she has an opportunity to speak to David Cameron. She has conspicuously not availed of the opportunities to raise those issues before.

What about Northern Ireland? Tell us what Sinn Féin is doing about child benefit up there.

Here is the issue.

Order, please.

The Tánaiste is trying to argue that-----

It is Sinn Féin-MI5.

Is that a voice in the wilderness over there?

Will you stay quiet? Deputy McDonald, without interruption.

The Tánaiste is trying to argue that black is white. She is trying to convince a group of families, who we all recognise are at risk of poverty and who we all recognise work very hard to raise their children-----

The Deputy wants to keep them in poverty.

She is trying to convince 10,000 of them that, by reducing their weekly income by €87, she is assisting them out of poverty.

The Deputy is wrong.

No, that is right. Furthermore, the Tánaiste is attempting to assert that all the parents who have been at their wit's end-----

A question, please.

-----some of whom will be almost in despair at this moment because of this cut, have somehow got their figures wrong. Let me tell the Tánaiste that, in my experience, people raising children, especially on their own, when it comes to their household budgets, do not get the figures wrong because they simply cannot afford to. The Tánaiste conspicuously avoided answering the central question. She concedes that we do not have an adequate child care provision or system. She made the promise.

Yes, I did.

The Tánaiste promised the very thing she is doing would not proceed until we had adequate, accessible, affordable child care. She went so far as to pin her ambition to the Scandinavian model. We have nothing of the sort, yet she proceeds with this, despite all her supposed concern for poverty and lone parents. We all know that child care is one of the major factors in regard to poverty. We also know that if a person cannot get 19 hours-----

Sorry, the Deputy is way over her time.

-----or is not in a position to work 19 hours, he or she is in serious difficulty. Instead of being condescending or dismissive on the issue, the Tánaiste should be aware that people who are watching this broadcast are about to lose €87 a week. Some of them will be forced not to get more employment but to leave employment. What do they see here? They see a Thatcherite stance from the Tánaiste and a position of utter indifference. I call on her to change her mind, keep her word and stop this cut.

Hear, hear.

I am not aware whether the Deputy has ever had the opportunity to visit a community-based crèche or if she has any familiarity with the work that is done by my Department, where over the past three years there has been a complete revamp of community-based child care and we now have high-quality child care at affordable, discounted prices for people going to work.

In regard to this debate, I want to move to a situation where parents are parents, regardless of their relationship status. It is time this country moved on and acknowledged all parents as equal. If the Deputy takes the time out of her busy and important schedule to visit community crèches, she will find a high level of child care is provided, very much in line with what I have seen as best practice in other countries and which follows detailed programmes.

Do we have a Scandinavian model?

We are over time.

I am ambitious. The Deputy may not have had the time to visit, but I am ambitious to see child care in this country improved for all parents, because parents who are married deserve to have access to good child care as well.

Do parents deserve to suffer this cut?

Instead of addressing the issue of all parents, this debate focuses on people with a particular relationship status. What about a couple, man and woman, both of whom are out working? Is child care of no concern to them? We want good child care-----

My concern today is that the Minister is taking money from the pockets of lone parents.

Sorry, we are over time.

Sinn Féin has a concept of a welfare country. Let me tell the Deputy about welfare. Jean McConville had 12 children and what did Sinn Féin's associates in the republican------

The Government does not give a damn. They are hypocrites.

I must ask the Member to please adhere to the Chair.