Michael Smith has been raising his two young children, aged seven and nine, alone in Kerry since their mother died suddenly in 2018.
Her death left the children without their mother, Michael’s partner of 16 years, and a family without social welfare benefits because the parents were not married.
Michael’s family faced severe financial and housing challenges due to the loss of the entire family income, the impact of balancing childcare alone with his paid work, and the inability to access certain social welfare payments – not helped by the childcare system.
“Their mother, my partner, died six and a half years ago when they were three and 18 months old. I’ve been looking after them ever since,” Michael said.
“Overnight we lost a mother at home. It is devastating to lose such an important person in a family regardless of other issues,” he added.
With limited access to childcare, Michael requested to go to work “part-time” to support his young children. But this additional loss of income had a knock-on effect.
“With my partner’s death we have already lost a full take home salary. Now I have to cut my own income by 60%. I felt I had to do this to support my children emotionally while trying to fend for ourselves. Financially.
“I knew my part-time salary wasn’t enough to keep us going as a family. I then had to apply for social welfare assistance in the form of One-Parent Family Payment and Working Family Payment,” says Michael.
However, these two payments were only granted after a very challenging form filling, which took place in the midst of grief, navigating being an only child and tending to the affairs of his deceased partner.
Notably, Michael’s family was not granted a widow’s pension due to the parents’ marital status.
In January 2024, John O’Meara, a parent working with Treoir, a national federation of services for unmarried parents and their children, challenged this discrimination against cohabiting couples and their families in the Supreme Court. He won his case.
“The emotional and financial impact of the death of a partner is no different whether the survivor is married or not,” Chief Justice Donal O’Donnell ruled.
“Losing a loving parent has the same effect on children, regardless of their parents’ marital status,” he added.
Despite this Supreme Court ruling, Michael’s family still hasn’t received the payment and none of the ministers mentioned it in Tuesday’s budget speech.
To make his family situation work Michael had to retrain for a job in terms of more school-friendly working hours and secure housing, relying on the good will of a “wonderful landlord”.
“A big problem with finding work with children is childminding. Working for minimum wage and paying a full-time babysitter means you can only earn a few euros an hour.
“In some cases you pay more than you get,” says Michael.
“Finding suitable work for children was another problem in my job search. Many companies require you to work weekends or shifts,” he added.
Michael is now back in the workforce, retraining as a special needs assistant, which allows him to work and spend time with his children. He relies on the children’s school’s breakfast club and after school club to make everything work.
Another obstacle Michael faced was having to go to court to apply for a guardianship order for his children, which cost his family several hundred euros.
He credits “fantastic” community organizations Listowel Family Resource Center and Treoir for their support over the past six years, and said he is “forever in their debt”.
#fatheroftwo #doesnt #postBudget #widows #pension