There were heated exchanges in the Dáil in a row over lone parent welfare cuts and comments by Labour chief whip Emmet Stagg in an email criticising the cut introduced by his party leader, Tánaiste Joan Burton.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin highlighted a number of cases raised with him by lone parents who had suffered cuts of up to € 70 as he told the Tánaiste “your chief whip doesn’t agree with you”.

Quoting from the email which was sent to a constituent, Mr Martin explained how Mr Stagg stated he had voted for the cuts because he was told that the childcare system that was promised would be in place before the last and most severe of the changes.

But defending the cuts Ms Burton said Mr Stagg had gone on local media outlet this morning to say that “the reform is a good reform”.

And she claimed that Fianna Fáil in government wanted to avoid the issue of lifting lone parents out of government, despite spending € 1 billion on payments.

Mr Martin said however that lone parents were not interested in the Tánaiste “taking a cut” at him. They were interested only in who was going to bridge the gap in their income.

Sinn Féin’s Peadar Tóibín accused Mr Stagg of “double duplicity” in voting for cuts he opposed and then whipping his Labour party colleagues into line to vote for the cuts.

Ms Burton said the purpose of the reform was to lift the income of lone parents above € 400 a week through a combination of increasing part-time working hours to 19 a week and through family income supplement, depending on the number of children.