Single-parent cuts in welfare backed

The cuts to welfare payments for single parent families was a step in the right direction but it must be accompanied by affordable childcare, EU finance ministers have said in their report on Ireland’s management of the economy.

They have long advocated work as the best way out of poverty, and said that some of the welfare payments were a trap, keeping people from accessing jobs.

Ireland has one of the highest proportions of people living in households where nobody is working or is working part time, while the number of children living in such households is nearly three times the EU average.