The parents who can barely afford to work

Life is meant to have got easier for single parents, but a new survey claims the system is failing them. Anne Dempsey reports

Wealth is relative. So Louise Murphy, mother of eight-year-old Adam and four-year-old Ciaran, felt rich three months ago, when her income increased to €360 a week. "It means the world. It means the freedom to do everything you want to do - well, not everything, but not worrying all the time about the next bill. I'm catching up, paying off my debts and hoping to get ahead."

A single mother from Claremorris, in Co Mayo, the 30-year-old had been living on the one-parent-family payment of €173.40. She is one of the families surveyed in Living On The Book, a year-long study of the lives of 16 lone-parent families around Ireland. Published today by One Parent Exchange and Network, this first examination of its kind calls for a review of the one-parent-family-payment system, which it says is failing to help single mothers and fathers.

Murphy's improved status is thanks to her winning a place on a community-education scheme as a trainee information officer at the local community information centre, which, coupled with her allowance, provides a living wage. "I absolutely love the work. You have people coming in with all kinds of queries. I had been at home 24/7 and, much as I love [my children\], it is great to be doing something for myself for a few hours a day.

"I was a sales assistant and continued working when I became pregnant with Adam. But after Ciaran was born I couldn't afford the increased childcare costs and had to leave work. I was on the housing list for eight years, living in private rented accommodation, paying €95 a week, and even though it was damp and poor I stayed, because you have to be seen to be suffering to get a house. When they came to look at the place they said, 'Yeah, it's bad,' but I said, 'You're here on a good day: it's not raining, so it's not so damp and you don't see the woodlice!'

"We got a council house last year, and I considered returning to work, but the sums still didn't work out. A childminder for Ciaran costs €80-€100 a week, taking care of Adam after school about €30 more, plus his school-bus fare of €10-€15 each week, so I would have been going to work to pay for the babysitter. With a registered person you can claim some childcare back, but they're more expensive, so it's catch-22."

So what was it like living on €173.40 a week? "Impossible, really. I got paid on Thursday, did a big shop, looking out for special offers, buying the basics. I cook the children a dinner each evening - potatoes, meat and vegetables. Takeaways are a treat every six months. I'm not going to spend €10 in the chipper when it could stretch to four dinners. There is usually nothing left by Wednesday - maybe some mince in the freezer, or sausages, or soup and bread.

"You have to look out for every little thing, like €5 a week for Adam's speech and drama and PE in school: you don't want him to be the only one not doing it. If he was invited to a birthday party you would cringe, worried about affording a present. Every week I would pay something off the ESB bill:€10 if I could, if not €5. Keeping my mobile phone topped up was another €10.

"I got a fuel allowance of €9 a week; a bag of coal is €12, and you hope it will last the week. I qualified for the €80 back-to-school clothing allowance last September, bought the uniform, and luckily I'm good at sewing, so I'm able to let things down. Clothes for myself have to go on the back burner. I buy in sales and market stalls - and again I'm lucky: I can do alterations.

"Both my son's birthdays are in November. I try to pick up bits and pieces during the year on special offer, hide them and hope they don't find them, but I usually end up having to borrow from the credit union for Christmas. You try to borrow as little as possible, but generally I would still be paying back next March and April. You're always robbing Peter to pay Paul.

"So now I'm paying off my credit union and bank loan. Adam can go to summer camp for a week: it will cost about €50. I've promised them a trip to Dublin Zoo. I reckon on the best part of €150, taking in train fare, admissions, dinner, sweets and souvenirs, but I hope it will give them something to remember.

"With the summer holidays now I'll need them minded in the morning, and I'm working out something with a neighbour. We do free things too: we walk out Clare Lake, where you can picnic; we do that a lot."

Murphy worries that her new-found prosperity may be short lived. "I'm on a one-year community-education contract, which can be renewed for up to three years and then finishes. It's not secure; the Government has closed other CE schemes and could withdraw the funding for this as well. I'm hoping it won't happen. I would like to move on to a full-time job, though coming off the allowance and losing my medical card is scary. But I want to be independent and stand on my own two feet. The boys will be a bit older, at school longer, and, hopefully, the after-school childcare costs will be OK.

"I think the basic €134.80 lone-parent's payment is disgracefully low, and I can't see any government official living on it. It's a punishment to get you out to work. Most of us want to work anyway but are penalised with childcare costs. There are lone parents who take everything and do nothing, and they give us all a bad name. But we are like any other section of society: we are not all the same.

"Ten years ago I would not have seen myself in this situation. But in neither case did the relationship work out, and I was left literally holding the baby. However, I feel as a family we are better off as we are now.

"As a single mother I do experience stigma. People have a poor opinion of you: you feel judged and gossiped about, and it does affect your self-esteem. But it could happen to anyone. It could happen really suddenly: someone could die and you could find yourself tomorrow on your own with your children."