Benefits fail to solve all problems

My Budget/Single Mother: Childcare is the bane of Susan Brennan's life. Well, it's more the lack of it in an affordable form that's the problem.

As a single mother she spends a considerable amount of her time ringing round friends and relatives to see if someone can mind her four-year-old son or to ask the school to watch him for an extra few minutes when she's running a little late on the way home from her part-time job.

What she really wants to see is increased availability of subsidised childcare, particularly after school care for younger children, so she doesn't have to rely on her family and friends so much. "They have their own lives and their own children to look after and I hate asking them all the time," says the 25-year-old mother. "It's not reliable either. I feel like I am constantly taking a chance that somebody can help me out."

While she would welcome an increase in child benefit, Ms Brennan says that what is really needed is more affordable childcare places. She says the €168 a week lone parent benefit is a help, but seeing as it is means-tested it isn't always available to all single parents, who may be just as in need of it as others who do get it.

"Just increasing child benefit is not really tackling the childcare issue," she says. "What we need is good quality affordable childcare where we know our children are safe."

She would also like to see increased training for people who work as childminders as they are "being trusted" to look after other people's children. "By providing a better childcare strategy, the Government is helping itself in the long run because more parents will be able to go out to work and therefore claim less benefits."

"This is something I will have to deal with for at least the next 10 years and the sooner something's done about it, the better."