The Society of the St Vincent de Paul has said that lone parents need to be facilitated to get back into the workplace.
The call was made as the society published its study on one-parent families today.
There are more than 215,000 one-parent families living in Ireland.
Last year, more than 78,000 of them were in receipt of the One-Parent Family Payment.
This study involved in-depth interviews with 61 of those families helped by the SVP.
It found that these families struggle to cover basics, such as food, rents, housing and energy costs.
The society's Head of Social Justice John Mark McCafferty said the provision of social housing was very inadequate and needs to be addressed in the Budget.
He also said the Government needs to invest in pre-school childcare and education.
Mr McCafferty said parents need to be supported to move from welfare into work.
The society welcomed plans suggested by the Government where a parent would be able to keep welfare payments worth up to €30 a week.
But it said more needed to be done and it pointed out that low incomes and water charges would mean greater hardship for one-parent families.
