A new campaign group called SPARK (Single Parents Acting for the Rights of our Kids) visited Leinster House last week to speak with Sinn Féin’s Aengus Ó Snodaigh who is compiling a report for the Oireachtas Social Protection Committee on the proposed new single working age payment.
The single working age payment, if adopted by the government, would be the single biggest transformation of our social welfare system since the foundation of the state. It proposes to do away with many special rules and schemes developed over the years to help some of the most vulnerable people in society, and to establish a single payment for every social welfare applicant from the age of 18 to 65.
In preparation for his report to the committee Deputy Ó Snodaigh is meeting as many groups and representatives and stakeholders as possible so that they can highlight their concerns and views and influence the report.
This is the reason SPARK were here last week. A friend and colleague of mine, Grace Costigan, is part of the campaign and I had passed her details onto Ó Snodaigh’s Political Advisor with a recommendation that they be invited in for a meeting.
SPARK is a diverse group of single parents living in Ireland who have united together to protect their children from the radical policy changes introduced in Budget 2012. They aim to raise awareness of the many challenges one-parent families currently face and to identify the essential supports needed to allow them equal participation in society.
They assert the rights of their children to be treated equally and demand acknowledgement and recognition of their family status. They actively challenge stereotyping of their families and oppose any economic, social, legal or political policies that have a detrimental effect on their children or on them as single parents.
They seek equality for children regardless of their family circumstances.
I wish them well in their campaign and look forward to Deputy Ó Snodaigh’s report. It is vitally important that the most vulnerable sections of society such as the children of single parents, the unemployed and those with disabilities continue to be protected by our social welfare system.
The photo below shows myself and Deputy Ó Snodaigh with members of the SPARK campaign team at Leinster House.
I have also embedded a link to a youtube clip from Deputy Ó Snodaigh’s office which is essentially an ad seeking submissions to his report.
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