Order, please, for Deputy Mary Lou McDonald.

This morning the Society of St. Vincent de Paul published its Working, Parenting and Struggling report, which is an analysis of the employment and living conditions of one-parent families in Ireland. Its findings are an indictment of the Government's record on poverty prevention and alleviation among single parent families, many of whom are at work. The report finds that one in 11 working lone parents was living below the poverty line in 2012 but that number had jumped to one in five in 2017. The high cost of housing and childcare combined with low levels of income are making it impossible for families to make ends meet. The report finds that the living standards of lone parents in this State are among the worst in Europe. We have the second highest rate of income poverty, persistent poverty and severe deprivation among 15 other EU states. That is shocking. What is most shocking, however, is that the majority of one-parent families, the vast majority of whom are headed by women, are in work. These families are like others. They are people who get up at the crack of dawn but who still struggle and fail to meet their own and their families' basic needs. Our cost of living crisis is leaving hundreds of thousands of people struggling and living in fear of any extra financial burden like a car breaking down or a washing machine packing it in. These are people who work hard to provide for their families. They have a modest aspiration for a decent, happy life but they cannot plan for their future. How can they plan when they cannot make ends meet in the here and now?

Low pay, especially in the context of the soaring cost of living, is the real problem. Workers on low wages, in many cases in insecure employment, are being asked to find money to pay for extortionate rents, crazy insurance premia and crushing childcare costs. It is not good enough to brush all of this aside, as the Taoiseach does frequently, with the promise of a meagre tax relief at an ill-defined point in the future. These families do not need a handout but a hand up in the here and now. These are people who work and who want to continue working to give their families and their children a better life. What does the Taoiseach propose to do in the here and now to address the cost of living crisis that is crippling these families? When will he introduce a living wage?

At the best of times being a parent is an enormous challenge in having to provide for oneself and one's kids. It is particularly difficult for lone parents who do so without the support of a partner, without a second income and without someone to share in the burden, cost and time taken by childcare.

To answer the Deputy's question, we are helping all parents, but especially lone parents, to improve their living conditions by creating jobs. The number of lone parents who are working has increased. The rate of unemployment is down by almost two thirds and the Deputy will know that it is down again today. We are increasing welfare payments that had been cut back in the past. They are being restored with an increase kicking in to the one-parent family payment and the jobseeker's transition payment in a few weeks' time. We have introduced the working family payment to replace the family income supplement, which allows lone parents who are working to keep more of the money they earn and to have their income topped up so they can avoid poverty.

We have reduced the costs of childcare and we will further enhance that with the introduction of the affordable childcare scheme later in the year.

We are increasing pay. The minimum wage has increased and pay has been restored for people who are public servants. It is also increasing across the private sector. We are reducing the costs of medicines and prescription charges are being reduced. General practitioner, GP, visits, which are already free to all children under the age of six, will be extended to a further 100,000 people from April onwards. Those are the measures we are taking to reduce the costs of living, to assist lone parents into work and to ensure they have more money in their pockets.

We are also focusing very much on education. We have, for example, restored the costs of education grant, and as a result record numbers of people from non-traditional backgrounds are now participating in higher education.

I have immense respect for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and have worked with it on many occasions; especially when I was the Minister for Social Protection, but I do not believe the report that was issued today tells the full picture. This morning I asked for the statistics from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, which collects the official statistics on poverty in Ireland. The CSO figures show that the consistent poverty rate - the official measure of poverty in Ireland - jumped from 18.4% in 2012 to 26.3% in 2013. Since 2013, however, for each of the past four years, consistent poverty and deprivation among lone parents has actually gone down. It fell to 23.1 % in 2014, there was a slight increase to 23.2% after that and then 20.7% in 2017. The most recent figures we have are for 2017 and they are less than those for 2013. This demonstrates that the policies we have implemented in helping people get back to work, helping them into education, improving welfare and reducing the costs of childcare are working. I predict that when we see the 2018 figures they will have improved again.

The tone of the Taoiseach's response is not unexpected but it is almost depressing. The measures his Government is taking are clearly not working for hundreds of thousands of people across the State but in particular for those families headed by a lone parent.

The Irish Times carried a very interesting series on child poverty. If the Taoiseach has not read some of the articles I would recommend them to him. One of the articles compared the standard of living of a mother of two from the midlands with an appropriate counterpart living in another jurisdiction. The article made for incredible reading. The woman concerned is at work. Such are her struggles to ensure her family can get by that she rations the number of times the kids are allowed to boil the kettle. Can one imagine having to count the number of times that a family can boil a kettle in its house? I put it to the Taoiseach that this is how tight things are. Many of the interventions cited by the Taoiseach are, in effect, subsidies for low-pay employment.

The Deputy's time is up.

I am asking for additional time. I will not debate the ins and outs of parenting and the challenges of it, and I am not going to trade statistics with the Taoiseach. I will simply tell the Taoiseach something that he should already know, that is, more needs to be done because people are struggling and suffering.

Please Deputy.

What by way of addition is the Taoiseach going to do now about the cost of living crisis being experienced by families across the land? When will the living wage - not the minimum wage - be the floor and the basic income in this jurisdiction?

The reason the Deputy does not want to trade statistics is that she does not want to talk about facts.

I want to talk about people.

No amount of individual stories, no matter how genuine they may be, will change the facts. It is a matter of fact that in each of the past four years, the rates of consistent poverty and deprivation have been falling in Ireland. Deprivation rates have fallen for lone parents and child poverty rates have fallen from 12.8% to 12.7% in 2014 and to 11.5% in 2015, 10.9% in 2016, and to 8.8%, which was one of the biggest falls, in 2018. They will fall again exactly because of the policies the Government is pursuing. There is more employment and-----

Those in work are at risk of poverty.

-----better wages and better salaries. USC is being reduced and access to affordable and subsidised childcare is widening-----

Which is sessional.

-----the cost of medicines is being reduced and we are capping rents. I accept that more needs to be done.

What is it?

We are doing more and will continue to do more. On the Deputy's specific question, there is a living wage in the United Kingdom and in Northern Ireland, which is a place she will know well. That living wage is actually lower than our national minimum wage in Ireland. We have a minimum wage in Ireland which is the second highest in the western world. It is calculated independently by the Low Pay Commission.

Does the Taoiseach have to restrict the number of times he boils his kettle?

Sinn Féin wants to change it in such as a way that it is calculated without any reference to employers. Sinn Féin wants to exclude small businesses from having any role in contributing to how the minimum wage is calculated. Sinn Féin wants to disregard the impact on the Border counties of a huge differential between minimum wages North and South. We have a minimum wage in Ireland, which is higher than the living wage in the UK and in Northern Ireland and it is calculated fairly.