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Budget 2027 is coming down the tracks, and here, Karen Kiernan of One Family shares some of the lived experiences of people on the front lines of the cost of living challenges.
The following comments were shared anonymously with One Family through its advocacy work and paint a stark picture of the financial pressures, childcare stumbling blocks and impossible choices facing many lone parents across the country.
As Kiernan argues, these experiences are not isolated stories but evidence of systemic inequalities that the government must address in the budget…
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Elaine* , Cavan, two children
“I’m a teacher. I’ve two kids by myself and two parents who need care too. I’m not getting any family support.
“Only for the Working Family Payment I wouldn’t be able to pay the bills.”
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Geraldine* , Cork, two children
“The Government should try living on the money lone parents get, and the pressure then to work, as well as doing the job of two parents and keeping a house together, making sure children are clothed and kept warm and secure.
“How would someone in the Government feel if they woke up one morning and they only had €25 left in their bank until the next payment in six days’ time.”
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Sinead* , Dublin, one child
“I am considering reducing my working hours to qualify for a payment. The money saved on childcare and travel alongside the payment would mean I have the same amount of money.
“There are additional costs as a single parent and there is no second parent to share the burden of childcare. This is not considered when calculating payments or leave.”
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THESE ARE SOME of the quotes parents shared with our One Family’s Advocacy Project, for our recent Pre-Budget Submission.
They powerfully highlight the inequalities that one-parent families face and how government action, or inaction, has worsened their circumstances.
As government prepares to outline it’s spending for Budget 2027 through the Summer Economic Statement, it’s critical they commit to actions which will reduce inequalities for one-parent families, not increase them.
We’re asking the government this year to meaningfully address the inequities and barriers which severely impact one-parent families. This action is urgently needed. Budget 2027 is an opportunity to get it right for one-parent families that government cannot miss.
Research shows that 48.7% of one-parent families in Ireland live in enforced deprivation. This means they cannot afford life essentials, such as having two pairs of strong shoes, or a warm, waterproof jacket, or eating nutrient rich foods every second day.
A further 13.4% of one-parent families are living in consistent poverty; a rise of 2.4%. While the overall rate of child poverty dropped, this was driven by reductions in two-parent households; for one-parent families, poverty is still increasing. If the government are serious about reducing child poverty to 3% by 2030, they must target one-parent families with necessary supports for success.
Delivering a public system of childcare and reforming the social protection system is critical to achieving this. Access to childcare is not only life-changing for lone parents, but also an anti-poverty measure.
A lone parent cannot work, increase their hours or return to education to increase their earning power, without access to affordable childcare. Failure to increase income disregards for One Parent Family Payment and Jobseekers Transitional Payment means our social protection system is actively deterring lone parents from working. This urgently needs to be increased.
The housing crisis impacts every one-parent family. We hear constantly from mums and dads whose relationship has ended, they want to fully separate but are forced to remain living together, because there is no housing available. There are many parents participating in our employability and parenting courses are living in emergency accommodation with their children and hotel rooms as their addresses.
Families are consistently topping up their Housing Assistance Payments (HAP) to cover real rental costs, spending more of their limited income on paying for housing. And then there are the lone parents, mainly women, who are forced to stay, or return to, domestic violence because there is nowhere else for them and their children to go.
The impact of the housing crisis on one-parent families is deepening, worsening and increasingly, intergenerational. The government must increase HAP rates and create a new, Additional Needs Payment to ensure minimum income for vulnerable families remains after housing costs are met and adequately fund the tenant-in-situ scheme, which is a critical anti-homelessness measure. Without these actions, child homelessness will continue to rise. Accepting this is a moral failure. The new Family & Child Homelessness Action Plan was due in April, it still hasn’t been published.
Another layer that’s common for many families is dealing with family law and the courts process, something which is often extremely stressful, difficult to navigate and for many, traumatising.
Separating and sharing parenting, particularly at the beginning, can be extremely challenging for parents, especially if there’s high conflict or domestic violence. The best outcomes for children are often reached outside of court, but parents must be helped to do this, through mediation, parenting courses, counselling and other supports. But not enough of these supports exist.
Our specialist service, Separating Well for Children, which supports families experiencing complex separation, has a 32% higher demand than we can provide. Every family who can’t access this support from us is another family who’s typically pushed into family law courts, forced to navigate an adversarial legal system for months, sometimes years, trying to reach child-centred agreements about how to separate and share parenting.
The government must increase funding for out-of-court supports, including our Separating Well for Children service, so that families can be helped to achieve positive, long-term agreements. The Family Justice Strategy also needs to be urgently renewed and the next implementation plan built.
We see the reality of these struggles in the families we support, every day. Even for the families who aren’t officially in poverty or deprivation, it’s extremely challenging to make ends meet.
Lone parents have one of the highest levels of in-work poverty, which is driven by a lack of opportunity of further education for parents. The reality is, not everybody has the same access to further and higher education in Ireland. Education remains a privilege that many lone parents don’t have.
The stunning cruelty of this, is that one-parent families would benefit the most from having a parent who was highly educated and could access high-paid, secure work. For many lone parents, they need specialist support to put them on a pathway to education.
Our New Futures Employability Programme does that, with an average 75% success rate of transitioning lone parents from social protection to employment or education. But we currently receive no government funding for it.
The government can do better and must do better. Our call is simple: take the actions needed in Budget 2027 to get it right for one-parent families. Because if the issues, and inequalities, and inadequacies are addressed for one-parent families, it will address them for all families.
It will create an Ireland where every child is equal, where every lone parent is supported to reach their full potential, and in the long-term, will deliver savings to the State. It is a synchronisation of action that is morally and logically correct.
Karen Kiernan is CEO of One Family.
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