Spot on. Im growing tired of “parents” not being responsible for their own kids.

The only income that can be subject to attachment orders is PAYE salary. Self employed and people on benefits can only be imprisoned for non payment of maintenance which will not put a nappy on a baby’s butt!!! I believe men should get automatic rights ONLY when we can enforce their responsibilities.

Until family Law is adressed and reformed this statement is nonsense, as there is no way to enforce court orders and attachment orders for maintainence, furthermore when a judge sees fit to provide a mother of 3 with €20 from her ex husband for their 3 sons etc etc etc the system is a joke

“I believe men should get automatic rights ONLY when we can enforce their responsibilities.”

What an absolutely disgusting comment. And, as usual, one that would never be said about women

What gives you the right to pass judgement on an entire gender? Do you think children don’t benefit from having contact with their own fathers? Should that benefit be subordinate to putting the boot into men? Should decisions about the family circumstances of a man and his children be placed solely in the hands of the mother just because she’s a woman? Are you going to take the children away from the the thousands of single fathers in the country? Are there not plenty of women who are remiss in their parenting duties?

Ignorant, hateful comment that reveals a lot about you as a person

a small ammendment to legislation will tidy up attachment order issue… while it is mostly fathers it is not exclusively so…

It costs this country over 110 million euros per annum to pay politicians, special advisors and senators. I have not included their expenses in this figure nor have I included the bonuses or salaries of banksters and CEOs of semi-state bodies Reduce this amount by 50% and leave the 7 – 12 year olds alone.

oh and just to clarify, none of us are actually asking for any more than the above mentioned figures, we are just asking not to be faced with cuts, and not to be excluded from jobsbridge schemes and other avenues into education or work, and not to have to be forced into leaving 7 year olds at home alone, and not to have cap on ofp reduced so we are not able to work part time, that really is not a lot to ask you know, not when there is limited work available, we are not asking for more, not a penny more, we are just asking to be left alone for now, or maybe helped back into work, not forced into deeper poverty,

Spot on and the average age of someone parenting alone is 37 yrs of age, I don’t see many teenagers in my area and I live in a council estate having kids

Comments based on assumptions are poor and discriminatory. There are over 180,000 Lone Parents in Ireland, half of those are in receipt of OPFA of the 80,000 people in receipt of this payment 60% ARE in employment, over 20% are in Full time education, the remainder have either very young children, or more than one child ( affordale childcare virtually impossible)

Two parent families in Ireland struggle to pay our excessive chilcare costs, which the current government estimate at 45% of a couples income!! Lone parents are at an immediate disadvantage.

The proposed changes for One Parent Families in Ireland will force those already in employment back onto long term benefits instead of allowing them to progress from their part time employment to full time & promotion. There will be an negative effect on society as a whole as a result of poorly though out cuts from government. Don’t come crying to me all the nasty haters when things get worse and worse.

At least have the decency to base your discrimination on facts, and back up your opinions with reality, I have no doubt that you will struggle to find any basis to justify current proposals

i dont know how they manage to spoil their kids, i really don’t, i only wish i could, although some areas , schools are classed as deprived and meals are provided for free,so are books and after school clubs subsidised, most of us though, especially us in rural areas do not get to avail of this so have the same income but more essential outgoings, that does need to be adressed

i dont know how they manage to spoil their kids, i really don’t, i only wish i could, although some areas , schools are classed as deprived and meals are provided for free,so are books and after school clubs subsidised, most of us though, especially us in rural areas do not get to avail of this so have the same income but more essential outgoings, that does need to be addressed

I agree. At 12/13 the child is starting secondary school and should be alot more independent than a seven year old. I think 7 is too young really

Divide and conquer… Sorry, but the single parents are not the baddies here. I’m looking at some of the thumbs down attached to some of the comments and it’s a bit of a shock how some people think. There are lots of other ways to save. Government are picking in the vulnerable AGAIN

I agree that children’s allowance system in this country is a joke but the best way to get money to those who really need it is for it to be assessed and if a family has sufficient income that they don’t need it then they don’t get it and visa versa. Not sure if your idea will work in relation to the allowance against their income via the tax they pay, they have no job your idea falls apart. The best idea I heard was a food stamp type idea where it could be redeemed against essential items (food, children’s clothes, nappies) and not booze and cigs.

Jason, good idea about some kind of system to avoid children’s allowance being spent recklessly…i don’t agree with means testing the payment though…the pple who contribute and in effect make it possible in the first place…should without doubt get something for their efforts…it’s a payment for all children and in my opinion should remain so.

fiona you will find that the payment was introduced in the 50s for women as they did not have “rights” to their husbands wages so it was a money given by the state for women to have something of their own,FACT!,
i find all your comments rather amusing as they are extremely ignorant and lack fact or substance , back these up with hard facts and figures and they may seem worthy, this is not about people looking for handouts, and oh how i wish i could spend a single penny recklessly,, i invite you to come and stay with me for a week and see the reality of it, then feel free to pass comment!!!

Emma…i’m entitled to my opinion as much you are yours…i’m not sure why you feel the need to ridicule me because we have different opinions…i’m also of the opinion, that just like it’s a good idea to expect accountability and transparency from our politicians…that maybe it’s not such a bad idea if there’s some kind of system to ensure the child benefits from the childrens allowance…used to buy food or clothes or classes or saved for futher education or along them lines…and i don’t feel the need to apologise for thinking this…you seem to have taken my comment personally, which is regrettable because that wasn’t my intention, i passed comment because i do feel strongly that all children be given this allowance…just because someone has more money than me, i wouldn’t begrude them getting something I would feel entitled to get for my child… especially when they contribute to that system to allow it happen for everyone. If you don’t agree with me, I think agree to disagree and leave it there.

sorry fiona i was not giving an opinion, i was stating FACTS, huge difference.
i understand your child benefit point, but ican assure you, every single penny that comes in this house, even money i may get sent for birthdays or christmas from my grandparents, goes on living, but the fact we are completely controlled in this nanny state already makes the suggestion that they should decide how it is spent very wrong, in july i may use most of mine towards kiddos birthday present and a little party, oh no shoot me down! i know someone who does not even know how much the payment is, it goes into an account that they use for their 3 holidays a year , they do not shop in ireland (thus not contributing to the economy), the government is cutting money from those who really need it for survival, the suggestion of means testing something handed out to people who do not need it somehow seems ridiculous ,when the whole country is supposedly meant to be paying with austerity , yet the poorest really are suffering the most , more that the media let on, if you want the true facts and figures i can get them for you, the reality, our children are excluded from most in life and suffer because one parent has decided not to be a parent to them, that is not my fault, or other lone parent’s fault and certainly not the fault of the children who suffer most, .
an opinion is one thing and your right and perfectly acceptable, but it is also my right to say what i think of an opinion !!!!!!

Of course, sure there’s plenty of jobs around..

If there’s one single thing I remember from childhood is that my mom was always at home to collect us from school and around the home with us to help with homework etc.

So children at 7 years of age have to come home from school by themselves and wait at home until parents are finished work. How does this work? Why would one parent work just to pay for childcare/babysitters? I just cannot understand this.

Part of me feels sorry for many of the kids ( not all ) who had little enough spent on them with the old system and times could be worse with a reduction but something had to give as the single parent payment is abused so much . Abused by many young girls ( not all ) that use this payment as a lifestyle with no intention of ever going off it .

The other problem the the minister needs to rectify while she’s at it , and she has already me mentioned it , is making it illegal not to have the fathers name on the birthcert do these dead beat fathers make a financial contribution to the child’s upbringing . Many purposely leave the name off the cert so they can straight on welfare .

Fathers should be paying for their children and not the state ! Many of the women say they don’t want the father in their lives . They should have thought of that the night they slept with him .

Frosthax, you were very lucky. Mine and a lot of my friends parents (I didn’t grow up in Ireland) didn’t have mammy at home to mind them once they started school at age seven. The vast majority of us grew up to become perfectly normal citizens.

Comments in relation to ‘young girls’ and ‘forcing fathers name on birth certs’ are extremely offensive and based on media spin by government and socially acceptable discrimination that stems from the Catholic church. All your comments are based on ssumptions and misconceptions and have no factual basis at all. Majority of children ar eborn into marriages and long term committed relationships, any parent could potentially be a lone parent, a family is only as strong as it’s weakest link.

Only 13% of Lone Parents in Ireland are under 25 years of age, and a smaller still amount in their teens (SWAP Oreachtas Committee Report March 2012)

Please do enlighten us as to what sort of ‘lifestyle’ a human being could expect to have when left with no choice but to raise their child on €29.80 per week per child.

The judiciary has a lot to answer for in respect to maintainence, rulings of €10 – €20 per week for one or often more children as acceptable amounts are disgusting. It is not possible to truly enforce maintainence orders in this country either.

It’s very sad that a huge majority of society believes the stereotyping and media spin deliberately created by government. As I said all these negative comment have no factual basis what so ever.

Of course i went to school! And i have parents and THEY provided for me, them, not the state & through hard work.
And i dont own a business, Im just an employee in a company and I am on the lower end of the industrial wage structure.
Whats your point?
I dont plan to have a load of kids that I cant pay for, myself. Thats what needs to be stopped.

Pamela, is it humane and socially cohesive to demand all the benefits yet refuse to pay taxes like the household charge?… to expect someone else to fund our services?…is it humane to expect a working mother to leave her baby with a child-minder so another mother can stay home with her children until they’re 12? …in an ideal world it would be great if all women could stay home with their kids until whenever they decide is the right time to go back to work…however in the real world…let’s be fair to all mothers.

fiona your ignorance is hilarious,
no one is saying they do not want to work, or want to stay at home until the child is 12, i think you need to look at the facts first, actually look at what we are campaigning, no one is DEMANDING anything , and the household charge, well, that is a ridiculous charge and absolutely nothing to do with family status or even our finances, that is actually not the point, i have been fighting against the household charge and i am actually exempt from paying anyway,
you sound jealous to be honest, but let me reassure you, there really is nothing to be jealous about the poverty we live in!

@ Fiona

those in receipt of social welfare payments ARE liable to pay the HHC.

Hi Pretty sprout,
yes…some pple in reciept of social welfare are liable for the hsehold charge…those recieving mortgage interest supplement aren’t and those on rent allowance don’t have to pay because it’s their landlord’s responsiblity. I’m currently unemployed and paid it.

Not trolling at all, if you have kids YOU should finance them, not everyone else and i never mentioned pyjamas or booze. Its common sense, kids cost a lot of money, people need to think about that before they commit to 4 or 5 of them and expect state financing.

I am a working single parent who has more than paid back in taxes the social welfare I received when my daughter was small and I was studying for my degree so I could work In the future. The social welfare meant I could afford child care so I could study. I was fortunate,these changes will limit the life chances of both parents and most importantly children. Even if you accept some parents are career recipients ( I don’t ) their children don’t deserve to suffer. It will result in children being left home alone etc. asides there are no jobs out there. Social welfare is there to protect the vulnerable in society the children of single parents should not be singled out for discrimination. For those of you single parent bashing remember you have no idea what is waiting around the corner for you. Your partner could leave die or your method of contraception may fail. Very few people choose to parent alone. Burton shame on you typical decide and conquer make the majority resentful of the minority powerless and divert the anger against the government

Couldn’t agree with you more Orla

*mums

They should get some maintenence from the childs father. The only people who should really be getting this payment are widows/widowers. There would of course be some special cases that should also qualify but otherwise the other parent should be made responsable. payments should be deducted straight from their wages or social welfare.

So they can just have as many kids as they want and expect the state to pay for everything? An example, I seen on Facebook yesterday to different girls with a different father for each of the kids they have announced that they had just booked their summer holidays and neither have ever had a job that I’m aware of. I haven’t had a holiday in years and these are getting state sponsored ones.

Sean, the ignore of your relies is frightening, you are assuming that the absent parent doesn’t pay maintainence for a start. THe court system is a joke, there is no standard amounts and ex husband with 3 children can be told to pay €20 or another can be told to pay €100 for one child there is no set system. As long as judges see fit to grant insulting amounts as suitable to provie for a child this will remain a problem.

All of your comments are based on your stereotypical opinions of which there is no factual basis, sickening.

sorry for typos very upsetting to read such vast ignorance, but sadly not suprising

In relation to the girls on facebook with the holidays, you don’t know if they receive maintainence, you don’t actually know for sure if they are in part time employment, you don’t know if they have saved for years, or taken a credit union loan. You are making an assumption that they are ripping you off because that’s what the government want you to believe, discrimination and stereotyping suits them, the age old divide and conquer still ery much in use.

Research your ill founded opinions and come back to me with a factually based argument and then we can have a real and fair discussion

How do you know he doesn’t know that?

I mean, if you’re going to give out to him for making assumptions, maybe you should make fewer of them yourself?

Meant to add – if he’s friends with them on Facebook then presumably they aren’t strangers!

‘neither of them have any job that I’m aware of’ since when must one inform all of ones facebook friends of their financial status, incomings and outgoings.

Sean is free to come back and tell me that he knows a,b, or c as fact, but it doesn’t change that it is extremely unlightly that he knows the ins and outs of their finances unless he he a close friend or relative, in which case he would know that Lone Parents do not have the imagined ‘lifestyle’ many people sugguest. The ‘lifestyle’ has a real name and it’s called POVERTY.

No-one is saying that it’s a legal obligation to disclose your source of income on facebook, but it gets mentioned pretty often if you have one – especially by the kind of people who talk about their holiday plans. The obvious question is; a holiday from what?

People in POVERTY (as you call it) can’t afford holidays

I know for a fact that they don’t work and I honestly don’t think the fathers give them much because I know a few of them and they don’t work either. Also you say they might have been saving, I don’t think so because they’re out every weekend. I’m only on here giving out about them because there is thousands like them out there completely milking the system and they’re the ones that are ruining for the people that really need by knowing every trick in the book. Don’t shoot the messenger, I’m only telling it as I see it and if you can’t admit that this is rampant around the country you need your head examined.

No Sean, you need to educate yourself with the FACTS before you comment on a topic. You have still stated that you are assuming this is the case. You are totally biased towards these individuals before even begining to form an opinion.

Actual figure on fraud across Dept of Social Welfare is 1% from Joan Burton office!! March 2012 ( SWAP Oireachtas Committee Report) Other claimed savings she highlighted in the media included ERROR from her own department.

60% of people in receipt of OPFA are in employment, over 20% in full time education. If what you say is in fact correct, and that is a huge IF those girls are perfectly entitled to save what little they have, take a loan or more lightly be gifted a holiday by a family member.

Why let your frustration at your own situation form your judgement on a whole social group? How silly of you!

I look forward to hearing how these ‘thousands of people milk the system’ there really isn’t much there to be so called milking. €188 pw like anyone who is unemloyed, €29.80 pw per child to feed and cloth them.

Help from St Vincent De Paul with tinned goods occaissionally.

1% don’t make me laugh. And only two types of payments, you’re killing me here. Welfare fraud is rampant, I know more people that are at it than not. Out of my dole I pay for my apartment, bills, feed and clothe myself. Down my way lads always go to one club in particular on a Thursday night because all the girls are out with the “mickey money”.

No suprise really that you have nothing to say other than disgusting remarks that are again based on myth, assumptions, prejudice and stereotyping.

My comment are based on facts from various sources, and first hand experience. Your comment are based on nothing other than small minded ignorance, I pity you to be honest.

Do enlighten us as to the other payments, please.

If you have many aquaintances frauding the system then that says an awful lot about you, but nothing about Single Parents. If you know so many fraudsters why not report each of them?

I just want to say before I head off I’m not pissed off with the money they get, I’m would just like to see it spent the way it was intended. They’re not given the money to go out every weekend on the session.

My comments are based on first hand experience. I have you figured out….. You just want to keep the money rollin and f#ck anyone that wants to stop the gravy train. Why the hell should the people of Ireland pay for a house for a girl just because she gets pregnant. I feel sorry for you because you’re either blind to the problem or worse a part of it.

Single parents!!

I have twice posted replies that include tonnes of statistics and links, but they must be too long or something because they won’t stay up. As previously you have made discriminatory comments with NO factual basis what so ever. And you readily admit to supporting your pals who are frauding the system and don’t report them?

Yet you have the neck to make out that Single Parents are the ones on a ‘gravy train’ , wake up!

It’s clear you are someone who sees nothing wrong with fraud, shame on you.

My pension is private, my health insurance is private. I pay paye, usc, prsi and I have no kids.im entitled to diddly squat from the ‘system’ despite that im one of the many people who contribute most to it.
Why should my tax pay to keep your or anyone elses kids?

Oh yes the old ‘Why should I pay’ Let me answer your question;

Do you value humanity?
Do you wish to live in a society with high or low crime?
Do you wish to see this country proper and grow or fail and die?

When you use your health insurance do you want to be certain that your doctor is well educated, personable and knows what they are doing? If so don’t you think people should go into the medical profession based on ability and brains, not social status, in order to have those best suited to roles, in them?

Surely you’ll also want the next generation to be well educated in order that they vote for a ‘good’ government that will make descisions about your life when you’re a pensioner, and that the staff managing your pension are well educated, and that the pension you collect is not stolen from you by people who have grown up in real poverty and are in turn raising their own families in poverty.

Hypothetical of course but if you look into it in detail there are very real and sensible reasons as to why it benefits all of society to provide adequately for those most in need and allow them the opportunity to get out of poverty, rather than to force them into a povert trap a la Burton 2012.

Nobody ‘plans’ to parent alone, nobody would wish that for their child, ever.

Did your parents provide you with a private education B7584? Or did your parents avail of the Irish education system while you were growing up? Possible even did your mum get child allowance for you when you were growing up? You know the stuff paid for by every tax payer in this country.

BTW I trust as you are working in Ireland but object to contributing to Irish society for the benefit of everyone when it comes to the time you retire you will return the state pension you are entitled to?

B7584

The reason…..we live in a democtratic society. You dont know whats around the corner for you. You could wake up tomorrow to find that you are shaking violently and cant walk, you could have a stroke, heart attack, brain hemorage. If your left in such a situation that you can no longer work, cant pay rent/mortgage, cant continue with private health insurance….will you not feel that the state is liable to take care of you financially because you work hard now and pay your taxes, because you should.
As a man – are you absolutely sure that you are not a father? Theres never any doubting who a mother is!

Hold on a minute, spending power has to be earned. State allowances are for needs, not wants

If you want money in circulation, leave it with the people who earned it in the first place

You mean don’t have children unless you can forsee the future? I don’t usually like to insult people but your comment makes you sound so uneducated.

that is ridiculous tbh but believe me, she is a limited edition, my kiddo will be in her winter boots until i can scrape together something for summer shoes, which will do her until new school shoes in september, that is the REALITY, that one you were talking about really is not typical of all,

Frank we will not be in line with europe, you name me a country, and I’ll give you a list of reasons why their age 7 rule is acceptable (some countries younger). If Ireland can step up to the plate and provide affordable childcare and more flexible working permitted for all parents then by all means introduce the 7, but introducing it without proper supports in place is disasterous.

There has been ALL party agreement to this in recent Oireachtas Committee Report on Single Working Age Payment March 2012.

Beware any society that does this to it’s most vulnerable, bit by bit they will discriminate against another group, then another, and then one day you will realise it’s you.

Single Parents are campainging because they want to work and want access to education, they are opposing the further barriers being created by the current government. I have endless facts and research to back up everything I’m saying. It’s s ickening how many people base their opinions on discriminatroy media propaganda or stereotypes.

its hard to earn money in this country where business are closing on a daily basis…dnt get me wrong there are people out there that dont deserve it but there sure are a hell of a lot that do

chuck i think you misunderstood the comment about men there earlier, reports are that joan burton has suggested father s must legally be named on birth cert ( they have to be present to sign for their name to be included at present so impossible to enforce until they change that, plus what is stopping someone from putting any old name down, not that simple is it) , but she also suggested that fathers named on cert MUST have automatic guardianship, what the comment meant, i assume, is that it should not be automatic , for many reasons, but that goes for absent mothers also, not just men,most cases it is the father that is absent, not all, but it is always assumed lone parents are mothers also, it goes both ways!!!