Joan Burton has introduced a scheme to take lone parents off the lone parents payment when the youngest child reaches 7 years of age. She describes this scheme as an initiative 'to encourage people back into the jobs market'.
The lone parents payment allows lone parents to work up to 19 hours per week without losing any benefits. Under the new scheme, the only people that will be affected are those that are already working part-time, in that they will have benefit cuts (described as means). This effectively shuts lone parents out of the part-time jobs market.
Please sign our petition to reverse the scheme and keep the lone parents payment until the children have finished secondary school. We will email it to every member of government.