The Government was urged yesterday to provide more resources to help young mothers to stay in full-time education.
The provision of childcare facilities, accommodation and, in some cases, financial support for grinds were all required to enable pregnant girls and young mothers to remain in school, a national conference on teenage pregnancy in Waterford was told.
Ms Bernadette Phillips, the co-ordinator of the Waterford Student Mothers' Group, which organised the conference, said the necessary support could only be realised in the context of a national policy on teenage pregnancy.
The group was set up to help girls who became pregnant while in secondary school to remain in full-time education. Many girls, said Ms Phillips, found that their interest in education increased after they became pregnant.
Because more young mothers were keeping their babies, there needed to be a corresponding increase in the services available to them.
Ms Maria Dempsey, a counselling psychologist with University College Cork, said the belief that the number of teenage pregnancies had "just boomed" in recent years was not borne out by the facts. Between 1996 and 1998, the number of births registered to teenage mothers had risen from 2,700 to 3,138.
The number of those mothers who were aged 15 and under had remained stable, rising from 46 to 56 in 1997, and dropping back to 48 a year later.
Ms Dempsey has completed a study on the experiences of pregnant teenagers in the south-east, which is to be published later this year.
The rate of births to teenage mothers in the region in 1996, when the idea of the study came about, was 20 per 1,000, and was second only to that of Dublin, she said. The national average was 16 per 1,000.
Young mothers and representatives of agencies, groups and organisations working in the area of teenage pregnancy throughout the State attended the conference.
Agreed policy objectives are to be drawn up and presented to relevant Government ministers.
