Hopes fading that Children's Minister will take different view than her predecessor

THIS Government seems to be just like the last one in viewing the lone parent as a potential danger to her own children. writes Victoria White

The Programme for Government makes no hint of restoring the One Parent Family Payment to lone parents whose youngest child has turned seven.

It does contain a clause saying the changes will be reviewed in the context of access to education, but not in the context of the access of parents to children and children to parents. The strong, moral tone declares that caring for your own child is the work the devil makes for idle hands. That if we leave a girl sitting around all day with her own child, the risk is that she will fall into moral turpitude, give in to the instincts of her fallen woman’s body, gaze into her child’s eyes, and bake him cup cakes.