Quarter of children in lone-parent households

IRELAND has one of the highest rates in Europe of children living in single-parent households.

Despite Ireland’s history as a staunchly Catholic country, where the traditional family of married parents living with their children was a long-held convention, a new EU-wide study has revealed that 23.2% of Irish children aged under 18 now come from a lone-parent household.

It is the second highest rate in the EU after Latvia (23.3%) and well above the EU average of 13.6%.