Why force lone parents to make choices that are not available?

YOU will recognise the passage, won’t you? “The State … guarantees to protect the Family in its constitution and authority, as the necessary basis of social order and as indispensable to the welfare of the Nation and the State.

… In particular, the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved. … The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.”

It is of course part of Article 41 of our constitution, the part that refers to the importance of the family in Irish life. The bit about the role of mothers isn’t often quoted and a lot of people regard it as somewhat old-fashioned.