MY BUDGET/trainee: When asked about this afternoon's Budget, the only thing on Lorraine Dempsey's mind is childcare. What is Brian Cowen going to do to make life easier and more affordable for her and her four children?

With three of her children in school and the baby in a creche, she works each morning at the Centre for the Unemployed in Dublin where she's training to be an information officer as part of a community employment scheme. Because she doesn't finish until 1.30, she has to pay her sister to collect her baby from the creche and look after it until she returns home from picking the other children up from school.

What would really help Ms Dempsey is more funding for childminding and more places for children to be child minded. "There is no point in giving out more money if there aren't enough childcare places to go round," she says. "There is a serious lack of creche places locally." She would also like to see more affordable after school and holiday childcare, which is in short supply and also expensive.

Ms Dempsey believes the existence of employment and training schemes such as the one she's on, which has enabled her to study for two college courses, is excellent news for anyone who is unemployed and trying to get back into work.

However, she feels that in some way she's being penalised for trying to stand on her own two feet because while the job does pay her, it also means she loses some benefits, such as the school clothes grant, which would help her greatly.

She would also like to see some sort of programme to help people like herself find a permanent job once they have finished the scheme. Her course ends in July and she will have to find her own job that pays enough to cover childcare costs as well as the usual cost of living. She will be watching Mr Cowen's announcements carefully.