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”.