Catherine Foley talked to young mothers in Drogheda, Co Louth,about their experiences of becoming parents at a young age

Thirteen young mothers meet every day in a monastery on Clinton's Lane in Drogheda, Co Louth. It's the only space available to the Lifestyle Moving On Project, a one-year course that provides education services in the area of personal development.

The main aim is to enhance these women's lifelong employment prospects. It's badly needed: these young women feel strongly that the school system has let them down.

As they sit in a circle and talk about their prospects, their experiences, their children and their hopes, they are passionate about the need to let other young people know what being a teenage parent is like. "We are just trying to let them know how hard it is," says Aishling Wrafter (21), who has a four-year old boy.

Last year the project's participants documented their experiences of teenage pregnancy. The resulting booklet, Reality from Dolls to Bottles - Who's Left Holding the Baby, was launched recently in Drogheda by the Minister of Social Community and Family Affairs, Dermot Ahern TD.

Mags Shields (20) was in fifth year when she got pregnant. "I was told I had to keep wearing a skirt," she says. Her parents made representations to the school, but to no avail: the skirt finally ripped. "I just thought they could have been a bit more understanding. I wasn't allowed take off my jumper because I had a bump."

Leanne (17), who also has a little boy, had a similar experience. "No one talked about it to me. I went home every day crying."

Karen Delaney (20), who has a three-and-a-half-year-old boy, regrets not being able to complete her Junior Cert. "They kept at me and at me, I had to wear a skirt. They just kept at me. It was just the uniform. I was only three months. I would have been able to do my Junior Cert. Now I have no exams behind me."

In the Moving On project's first year, there were 45 applications. Last year there were 70 applications from young mothers aged 16 to 24. However, only 13 mothers could be catered for this year on the project.

Getting pregnant, says Linda Cunningham, co-ordinator of the project, "seems to be an accepted culture" among many teenage girls. However, the wider society still fails to understand that "school children are going to have sex.

"In other countries they have accepted that teenagers are sexually active at an early age. In Ireland we haven't accepted it," she says. "There are children out there and they are sexually active at the age of 12."

Cunningham is convinced the behaviour would be less prevalent "if they had information on sex. And the parents need to be educated as well."

Cunningham says there should be more effort to address the problems that lead some girls into early sexual activity.

"There should be more personal development in schools," she says. Many young girls she has met in her work lack a sense of confidence and self-worth. "They have all dropped out of school early. The Moving On project aims to develop their life skills, let them know about their options and choices and the fact that they can make choices," she explains.

Without such guidance, on becoming mothers, many girls "have to prove that they are better mothers and better than any other mother, to the point that they neglect their health," she says. "Some have no support, they live outside the family home in apartments - only some have partners. In the education system, I think they are very vulnerable."

Susan Walker, who completed the Lifestyle course last year, has a little boy. She recalls learning about the reproductive system in biology "but that's not telling you this is what happens when you have a child," she says. "I didn't think it would happen to me."

Fiona McCormack (24), who has also had a child, believes she is "is stronger for it". Her world seems to revolve around the little blond child but, she stresses, it might be better "if people were told the consequences behind pregnancy, and being a lone parent - that it's not all a bed of roses. There's an awful lot of girls living in a fantasy. Maybe if schools had a nurse to hand out contraception, to give some advice."

In Leanne's experience, schools "don't give you any support".

Debbie Mohan, Moving On Project worker, has found that all the young mothers "had bad experiences at school, with very little support. The education system is failing. The personal development is not there. They are totally immature, they are not ready. Some of them are so insecure, they have a baby so that it will validate them."

Moira (20) who has a two-year-old boy, would certainly not recommend motherhood to other young women. "It's too hard rearing him. You don't have time for yourself."