‘I cannot afford the weekly essentials’

MOTHER-OF-FOUR Glynis Curtis has had her annual benefits cut by almost the Taoiseach’s weekly wage.

The lone parent said she is already struggling to make ends meet, often walking out of supermarkets without essentials when she reaches her weekly budget.

“I feel like burying my head in the sand, but I have to get up and get on with it,” she said.

“I don’t know how I’m going to keep my head above water.”

The 44-year-old survives on a one-parent family payment of €301 a week, fuel allowance of €21 a week, monthly child benefit totalling €624, as well as maintenance from her ex-husband.

That will be cut by €70.33 a week when changes in all three payments come into force.

“That’s €3,567 a year, not taking into consideration the VAT and taxes. I sat down here and made myself feel worse by working out what Enda Kenny gets a week. It’s €3,846. I’m speechless.”

Ms Curtis lives in Celbridge, Co Kildare, with Adam, 17, Louise, 14, Ryan, 11 and 4-year-old Zoeann. She refinanced the mortgage on the family home down to €500 a month after she separated from her husband in 2007. She was pregnant with Zoeann and lost her well-paid job as a sales manager with a cosmetics company.

Last December, she was forced to sell her jewellery, including her wedding ring, to pay for Christmas.

Ms Curtis, a part-time psychotherapy student, said she would be lost without support group One Family, and her mother, who paid her first-year college fees.

She is dreading tomorrow’s tax budget, fearing a property tax and a jump in petrol and car tax.

Ms Curtis said the family’s only luxury — Sky television, costing €78 a month — will be next to go.

“I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t go out,” added Ms Curtis. “That’s my only entertainment and the kids’ entertainment. I don’t buy brand products. I go around the supermarket with my calculator on my phone and when I get to a certain amount I don’t go down the next aisle. Sometimes, when the children ask me for a euro I have to tell them I haven’t got a euro.”

Ms Curtis is relieved there was no hikes on the medical card prescriptions. She suffers from arthritis, blood pressure problems and infections in her only kidney, while Louise has an inhaler for asthma.

But she reveals that next year is an expensive one for her family, with Adam sitting his Leaving Cert and starting college, Louise taking her Junior Cert, Ryan celebrating his Confirmation and starting secondary school and Zoeann beginning primary school.