I wish to address the abolition of the one-parent family payment from yesterday, 1 July, for parents whose youngest child is over seven years, by the leader of the so-called Labour Party, Deputy Joan Burton. I am trying to come up with a new name for that party, as it no longer reflects my ideals of what a labour party should be about.

The party of Connolly.

Fr. Peter McVerry, in a letter to The Irish Times last week, wrote that these cuts

will cause unnecessary hardship for thousands of lone parents and their children, and should be abandoned. [...] My experience over the last few years is that, increasingly, the Department of Social Protection has become hard-hearted and even ruthless, to the dismay of some of its own staff.

The crux of the problem is the chaos of child care in Ireland these last years. The last good policy change was when Fianna Fáil introduced the free preschool year. Nothing has happened since, and Ireland's child care costs are among the highest in the 34 OECD countries. The average weekly cost of child care here is €167, although it is much higher than that in Dublin.

Speaking on "Tonight with Vincent Browne" last night, I said it was a gendered cut, as 98% of lone parents are women. This is the most gendered cut in the history of the State and the fact that it has been done by a woman adds to the disgrace of it. The Survey of Income and Living Conditions, SILC, from 2013 showed that 23% of one-parent families lived in consistent poverty. This represents an increase of 32% in the consistent poverty rate for those families from 2012 to 2013. Another person whom I revere very much, Professor Kathleen Lynch, professor of equality studies in UCD, compared the situation to welfare cuts in the United States and cited a study describing those US cuts as creating "intractable conflict for poor people trying to care for kids." Could someone tell me how one does a job as a lone parent while looking after children? I would like to think the women in this House are very ambitious and big into their careers. How can a woman be ambitious in her career if she is a lone parent and has nothing to live on?

Well said.

I was with a woman last Friday who has two children. She is a qualified nurse with degrees in nursing management, yet the Society of St. Vincent de Paul is paying for her food and electricity. She lives in the wealthiest constituency in this country, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown.

Disgraceful.

The point has been well made.

I agree with Senators who have expressed concern about the protest yesterday and compliment the members of the Garda on the manner in which they dealt with it. In fairness to them, they put up with a lot of abuse and threats and managed very well in a difficult situation. I do not think any garda should have to put up with the abuse endured yesterday.

On the matter of social welfare reform, we have the highest number of people in households with no income other than social welfare across Europe. There has to be reform for a very fundamental reason. Whether we like it, we will have 20,000 more people reaching pension age every year from now on. That means 20,000 extra people per annum will be in receipt of the pension and will require additional care such as health care. We need to plan for this and part of that planning is reform. Whoever comes into government in 2016 - I hope it will be Fine Gael and the Labour Party - by the time they leave Government five years later, there will be 100,000 more people in receipt of the old age pension. We currently have 3.5 people working for every old age pensioner, and if we want the same ratio in 15 years we will need 2.7 million people working. We need to bring about reform. The Tánaiste has brought about necessary reform of-----

It is not reform if no alternatives are created.

It is reform. We are reforming and we need to have it in place; it is all part of the long-term planning we have to deal with.

The Minister, Deputy Alex White, said last night that he was proud of this cut as a work activation measure. Did Senator Colm Burke see him?