Children from single-parent families are three times as likely to be living in poverty, due to inadequate welfare allowances and discriminatory rules on working, it has been claimed.
One Family, which represents single parents, said yesterday that official figures contradicted recent claims that it was financially rewarding to become a single parent.
The group asserted that the opposite was the case, and that the current welfare system discouraged single parents from going back to work or third-level education because of a lack of State-funded childcare, coupled with the fact that they faced drastic cuts to their income.
Ms Anne Bowen, social policy officer with the group, said EU figures last month indicated that 33 per cent of single-parent Irish families lived in consistent poverty, compared with 9 per cent of the general population.
A further 42 per cent of one-parent families were at risk of poverty, compared with 20 per cent of all families, Ms Bowen said.
She said half of all single-parent families were on social welfare payments, which suggested that the current rates were too low.
"They're living in poverty because welfare isn't adequate," she said.
Recent statistics from the EU Survey on Income and Living Conditions showed that one-third of single-parent families could not afford new clothes, 31 per cent had built up debt because of ordinary living expenses, and one-quarter said they had gone without heating in the last 12 months due to lack of money.
The figures were outlined in a position paper by One Family, which showed that of the 160,000 single-parent families, 40 per cent were headed by widowed adults, 32 per cent by separated or divorced parents, and 24 per cent by single fathers or mothers.
Single parents can maintain their allowance when working, but face reductions if they earn more than €148 per week.
"That rate was introduced in 1994 and it hasn't changed since," Ms Bowen said. "But in the same period the consumer price index has gone up by 32 per cent."
She said single parents were therefore penalised if they tried to find work, as they would lose benefit. Combined with childcare costs, they would be losing money by going to work outside the home.
One Family's director, Ms Karen Kiernan, said the proposed reforms of the Single Parent Allowance, announced by the Minister for Social Welfare, Mr Brennan, would have to take those issues into account.
Ms Bowen said One Family did not necessarily have a problem with the State requiring single parents to look for work or education if a proper welfare system and childcare services were in place to assist them.