'Extremely stressed' single parents fear losing their job over school closures

A support helpline has been “flat out” responding to the fears of single parents since the announcement of school closures. Picture: Larry Cummins

Working single parents facing into a second school closure are under severe strain and in some instances fear losing their jobs, according to a national support group.

Karen Kiernan, CEO of One Family, said their helpline staff have been “flat out” responding to the fears of single parents since the announcement of school closures planned as part of the new level 5 lockdown.

“We have been contacted by people who are extremely stressed and anxious about the fact that they have no parental leave left,” she said. 

“Their employer wants them to go into work and they don’t know what to do with their children. People are risking losing their jobs because they just can’t meet all the different needs.

With the schools closed, it makes all the inequalities, all the struggles, and all the difficulties faced by one parent families much, much worse.” 

Ms Kiernan said the announcement of a second schools closure saw a return to the “high levels of anxiety” experienced by single-parent families throughout 2020.

One in five Irish children are raised in single-parent families, according to the CSO, with 86% of these households headed by a female.

Single-parent families are significantly more likely to live in poverty than their two-parent counterparts, and the Covid-19 crisis has exacerbated inequalities, One Family has reported.

Karen Kiernan is the CEO of NGO One Family.

“I think there’s a really big, invisible minority of children and families who are struggling day in, day out,” said Ms Kiernan.

“All the research shows that they have less resources, less resilience to problems like Covid. 

Our society is not structured to support non-traditional families. People need two incomes to survive in this society — and if you don’t, you’re way behind.” 

Many single parents reported “struggling with food and bills”, she said. “We’ve been flat out, and they’re flat out. They don’t have the energy to do anything beyond trying to survive each day.” 

Ms Kiernan said that while education should be a separate consideration to childcare, the reality of Irish society is that “at a policy level, our Government uses schools for childcare; it’s part of practice and policy that enables parents to work. The State has some responsibility in that.” 

All of us are being affected by the current Covid–19 crisis and we know that many people are anxious and confused about important issues. It is essential that we work together for the best interests of the most vulnerable and our children. Learn more: https://t.co/FswsczbRrv pic.twitter.com/sgQabvBjg0

— One Family Ireland (@1familyireland) January 4, 2021

One Family has heard both from single parents attempting to work from home and single parents who are expected to return to their place of work, Ms Kiernan said.

“How can you work full-time and manage children alone?” she said. “Some employers are exhibiting flexibility and letting parents work early in the morning or late at night, but that’s not sustainable — it’s exhausting.

There’s a very soft approach being taken by Government to ask employers to be flexible. That doesn’t translate into anything for many employers. 

"Of course, many single parents are frontline workers as well, and they are supposed to return to work.” 

Essential workers can form a childcare “bubble” with another household if needed, under provisional plans discussed on Wednesday.

One Family was one of 10 NGOs who submitted a report to the Oireachtas Covid Committee in October. One of its main recommendations was that single parents forced to leave work due to lack of childcare should be automatically eligible for PUP payments.

Conditions for single parents were not written into PUP conditionality, but Ms Kiernan said the Department of Social Protection has said they are operating “with flexibility” when it comes to single parents forced to leave work due to lack of childcare.

“If there are people parenting alone who can’t work because of childcare, they should be eligible for the payment. If they’re told they’re not, they should let us know so we can contact the department.”