Campaign groups vow to fight one-parent family cutbacks

Lone parents are being attacked out of the blue and new social welfare rules which will see the one-parent family payment paid only up to the age of seven will be “opposed vehemently”, campaign groups say.

By 2015, all lone parents claiming the one-parent family payment will only get it for children until they are seven, down from 18 prior to 2011.

Labelled “regressive and counterproductive”, and the worst thing to ever hit lone parents, three organisations — Open, Barnardos, and the National Women’s Council of Ireland — said they will “fight” to remove the measure from the Social Welfare Bill.