Ireland’s housing crisis is creating serious difficulties for one-parent families, with some parents unable to find separate accommodation after a relationship breaks down and others living in housing situations that may never appear in the official homelessness figures.
That is one of the concerns raised in the 2025 Annual Report from One Family, an organisation supporting one-parent families.
The organisation says housing insecurity, family homelessness, poverty and rising living costs are making the circumstances facing many families increasingly difficult.
One Family said its helpline answered 7,981 queries during the year, while its services provided 2,651 supports to more than 700 families. It also supported 99 lone parents through its New Futures Employability Programme.
Parents separated but still living together
One of the issues highlighted by One Family is the growing number of separated parents who are unable to establish separate homes because suitable accommodation is unavailable or unaffordable.
The organisation said it had seen a significant increase in families contacting it where parents had separated but were still being forced to live together.
For parents who want to establish separate households, the housing shortage can make that extremely difficult.
One Family chief executive Karen Kiernan said the fear of homelessness is a constant concern for many of the families receiving its services.
She said that without a safe and secure home, it becomes difficult for families to separate well, for parents to remain in employment or education and for them to concentrate on raising their children.
For some families, the housing crisis therefore does not simply mean finding a better home.
It can prevent a family from being able to establish two homes after a relationship ends.
Families who may not appear in homelessness figures
Another issue raised by One Family is housing insecurity that does not necessarily result in a family entering emergency accommodation.
The organisation said some one-parent families choose to stay with relatives or friends, sleep on couches or remain in overcrowded accommodation rather than move into emergency accommodation.
These situations are sometimes described as hidden homelessness, although the term is not an official category used in the Government’s monthly homelessness statistics.
The Department of Housing’s official homelessness figures record people accommodated in State-funded emergency accommodation overseen by local authorities during the monthly count period.
That means the official figures provide an important measure of homelessness, but they do not capture every form of insecure or overcrowded housing.
For a family staying temporarily with relatives or friends, having somewhere to sleep does not necessarily mean that the family has secure or suitable accommodation.
The impact on children
One Family’s report also highlights the effect housing instability can have on children.
The organisation reported cases involving babies and toddlers where it said prolonged periods in emergency accommodation were associated with delays or negative impacts on gross motor development.
It also reported an increase in separated parents being forced to continue living together and said this was having negative effects on children’s mental health.
These findings are presented by One Family based on its experience supporting families.
The organisation says the effects of housing insecurity can continue even after a family eventually leaves emergency accommodation.
Kiernan has argued that moving families out of emergency accommodation does not necessarily remove the longer-term consequences of prolonged housing insecurity.
The issue is therefore about more than whether a family has somewhere to sleep. For children, prolonged instability can affect family life, relationships and everyday development.
Housing and child poverty
The wider financial pressure on families is also reflected in new ESRI research.
Research published by the Economic and Social Research Institute in September found that 260,000 children, or 22.7%, were living below the poverty line after housing costs were taken into account, based on 2024 data.
The ESRI found that the increase was particularly pronounced among families with young children. After housing costs, the poverty rate for families whose youngest child was aged between zero and five rose from 20.8% to 26.6%.
The research also found that children experiencing both child-specific deprivation and household deprivation were more likely to live in lone-parent families, among other groups.
Housing costs therefore make a significant difference to how household living standards are measured.
For a lone parent, where one adult may be responsible for rent or mortgage costs as well as childcare and other household expenses, the pressure can be particularly difficult.
When domestic abuse and housing insecurity meet
Housing insecurity can become even more serious when a parent needs to leave an unsafe relationship.
Corrine Hasson of the National Women’s Council said the housing crisis and violence against women were increasingly intersecting.
She said some women experiencing domestic abuse may remain in an abusive or exploitative situation because they believe staying is safer for their children than facing insecure accommodation.
For a lone parent, finding an alternative home can be particularly difficult when there is only one household income and childcare responsibilities to consider.
The housing shortage can therefore affect a family’s choices long before a household appears in official homelessness statistics.
The cost of finding another home
The housing difficulties identified by One Family come against a rental market where rents remain high.
The RTB and ESRI’s Q1 2026 Rent Index recorded a standardised average rent of €1,839 a month for new tenancies, compared with €1,513 for existing tenancies.
For a parent who needs to establish a separate household after a relationship ends, finding another suitable property can therefore create a major financial burden.
Rent is also only one part of the household budget.
Families have to pay for food, electricity, heating, childcare, transport and other everyday expenses.
When most of a household’s income is already committed to keeping a roof over the family’s head, there may be little room left to absorb another major cost.
One Family calls for more support
One Family is calling for additional measures to support one-parent families.
Its proposals include creating a new Additional Needs Payment to protect a minimum level of income after housing costs, increasing income thresholds for the One-Parent Family Payment and Jobseeker’s Transitional Payment, and increasing Housing Assistance Payment and the Rental Accommodation Scheme in line with market rents.
The organisation also wants continued investment in its New Futures Employability Programme to help lone parents move from social welfare into sustainable employment.
These are proposals from One Family and are not current Government policy.
The organisation says financial and housing supports need to take account of the particular circumstances of one-parent households.
A housing crisis that is not always visible
The experience described by One Family shows why Ireland’s housing crisis cannot be understood only by looking at the number of people in emergency accommodation.
Some families enter emergency accommodation and appear in the monthly statistics.
Others remain with relatives or friends, sleep on couches or live in overcrowded homes because they have nowhere else to go.
Separated parents may remain living together because neither can secure another home.
A parent experiencing domestic abuse may face an equally difficult choice if safe alternative accommodation cannot be found.
And children can experience the consequences of housing instability even when their family is not officially recorded as homeless.
For one-parent families, the housing crisis can therefore begin long before the point at which a family enters emergency accommodation.
Having somewhere to stay is not always the same as having a secure home.
