Lack of balance in lone-parent reports

IN her letter (May 15), Camille Loftus of the single-parent group OPEN refers to my letter of April 30 which she wrongly claims was “in relation to your report headlined ‘Crackdown denied as lone parent payments cut’” (April 14).

My letter actually compared two separate reports in the Irish Examiner — one which highlighted the “fact” that only one in six absent parents, referred to as “deadbeat dads”, paid support for their children. This report ignored the absent parents who make unofficial cash payments to the other parent in order that the one-parent family allowance is not reduced.

The second report that Ms Loftus refers to stated that “more than 15,000 one-parent family payments were scrapped or reduced by the Department of Social and Family Affairs last year”.

My letter pointed out the lack of balance between these two reports, with a spokesperson quoted on behalf of the lone parents (mostly mothers) who had been claiming benefits they were not entitled to, whereas the absent parents (mostly fathers) were not only referred to as “deadbeat dads” but had no one speaking on their behalf.

If Ms Loftus, on behalf of OPEN (an organisation that supposedly speaks for a national network of lone-parent support groups) can explain why the 15,000 lone parents claimed social welfare they were not entitled to, then maybe she could also explain why only 16% of the absent (lone) parents investigated by the Department of Social and Family Affairs (DSFA) have to pay maintenance for their children as the remainder were not obliged to? The DSFA found that these parents were low earners, on social welfare, unknown to the mother, or the mother claimed they were violent.

If Ms Loftus truly believed that the welfare of children was not served by demonising either the resident or non-resident parent, then she might have interjected when the first report demonising dads was published.

Cathal Garvey

17 Stanley Heights

Slane

Navan

Co Meath