People urged to help lone parents with childcare this morning

It's not just elderly neighbours we should be checking on.

The public is being asked to think of any lone-parent families who live nearby today as weather conditions worsen. Social welfare payments are being made available a day early this week to many groups, including single parents, but many mums and dads are reluctant to bring their children outdoors in the current freezing conditions, said Single Parents Acting For Rights of Kids (SPARK).

"Many lone parents are due to collect essential social welfare today but can't bring kids out in that," the group tweeted. "Post offices (that are open) will close at 1pm. If you know a lone parent can you offer to mind kids to allow them out to post office."

SPARK shared a message from one stranded parent who said she is running low on food.

Lone parents are due to collect social welfare today but many now stranded with young children and post offices closing. Could no one have planned to allow them collect money a day earlier? Extra fuel allowance great, but people need money today for food, fuel, prepay meters etc. pic.twitter.com/0aeW94kOU8

— SPARK-Ireland (@SparkIreland) March 1, 2018

One in three lone parents in Ireland are persistently deprived, a study released last month showed. This rate of deprivation is 26 per cent higher than for other adults, researcher Dorothy Watson of the Economic and Social Research Institute found. Let's all try and dig in to help anyone need today and tomorrow.