Ms Paula Maher:

I would say that, yes, that is an issue. We have carers who feel they need to leave because they feel they are in a trap.

In respect of the current social welfare situation, one of our young carers came to me recently to tell me she is considering leaving. She is a young single mum of three children ranging in age from two years to nine years. She is in receipt of the working family payment. During her renewal, one of her payslips showed that she had worked additional hours. To pay for her child's communion, she tried to earn a bit of extra money. As a result, her payment was reduced from €160 per week to just €60.

That change was flagged to the one-parent family payment office, which cut her by a further €100. She is now €200 a week worse off and is in significant financial hardship. On one occasion, she had worked just under the 19 hours because her infant was sick and she could not leave the child, and she was told she was not eligible for the payment because she had not worked 19 hours that week. She is kind of at the point now where she said there is no point as she is being penalised so much.