Sometimes Louise O'Neill feels she's being made an example of as a warning to other teenagers not to have babies.
Parent: Louise O'Neill, Leaving Cert student, Cabra, Dublin.
Children: Gabrielle (aged four)
What they have: No childcare
What they want: Affordable before- and after-school care
"I get very, very upset and angry because it's so unfair," she says. "I'm an enthusiastic student and I've been trying so hard to get back into full-time education."
What's unfair? As a 19-year-old, Louise is entitled to none of the returning-to- education grants or supports she would receive as a 21-year-old. It's up to her to fund childcare for her four-year-old daughter, Gabrielle, which she cannot afford on the lone parent's allowance.
The lack of childcare means that Louise is forced to do her Leaving Cert year over two years rather than one, delaying her entry into third level and the workplace.
Gabrielle is in junior infants at the local national school and Louise is at Coláiste Eanna in Cabra. Days at both schools start at 9am and Louise's ends an hour later than Gabrielle's. The only way that Louise can deliver and collect her daughter from school on time is to miss the first and last classes of the day.
Lack of study time is also an issue, as Louise is free to focus on studying only after Gabrielle is in bed in the evenings. On Sunday afternoons, Louise has three or four hours of study time when her parents take Gabrielle out.
Louise and Gabrielle live with Louise's parents, both of whom work full-time outside the home. If Louise were to make herself even more dependent on the State by leaving the parental home, the poverty trap would be even more difficult to escape, she believes.
Unlike her classmates, Louise can do only five subjects in the Leaving Cert this year and will have to repeat the five, adding two more, next year. If she was 23, she could apply to university as a mature student and points would be less of an issue.
Accessing clear information about her entitlements has been a struggle for Louise and until recently, she was unaware of the grants she could receive to assist her in going to third-level education. But childcare will always be a problem: not only is it unaffordable on her lone parent's allowance, which goes towards clothes and food for her daughter, but the nine-to-five hours are not student-friendly.
Louise is ambitious and wants to go to university to study psychology, but without financial support for this she will have to take a business administration course, work for a few years to save money, then go to university. "It seems that once they have you in this poverty trap, they don't let you out," she says. "I don't mean to sound paranoid, but it feels like they want to make it hard for you to go to university."