To survive as a working parent, "You have to be very organised, you have to be almost military in your time planning and you always have to have plan B," says Senator Kathleen O'Meara. Full-time mother of Mark, 16 and Fiona, seven, Kathleen has also been full-time journalist, full-time politician, and sometimes a combination of both.

It's a complicated juggling act, she says, but it can be done.

"I was a freelance journalist and I worked for the Labour Party in the mid 1980s when Mark was small - with one child it is manageable." After Mark was born Kathleen went to work for the Labour Party full-time but she returned to journalism in 1988. She got a job in the newsroom in RTE which, she says, offered more regular hours but still ensured a hectic lifestyle.

"When Fiona came along in 1992 I was working on the television news desk, which was quite a pressured job. At one stage when I worked in Morning Ireland I did all night work. We worked from four in the afternoon to 12 at night with the occasional very early morning shift. With school hours that can cause particular pressure points."

Kathleen points out that any career is difficult to sustain when children are very young, but politics is particularly demanding.

"I think a political career with very small children is virtually impossible. Fiona is seven so she's over the baby stage and I have great support, but these days I'm out five if not six nights a week and it would be totally unfair and impossible to manage with a very small child."

Kathleen says that she's been lucky and has had great help from her family and friends. Being a triplet, she has always had sisters who were there to lend a hand, but her greatest support has been her husband Kevin.

"Kevin has always had a regular nine to five job, although, being an engineer, he's very busy as well and in fairness to him he has always done his share of the minding and these days he probably does more or it." Although Kathleen and Kevin have managed between them to develop a workable family routine, they found that between work and the kids they have very little time left for themselves.

"Generally what you find is that your own social life goes out the window. You put it on hold because you are so tired by the end of the week that you're just dying to stay at home and rest and the cost of babysitting or the inconvenience of babysitting becomes such an issue that you just couldn't be bothered."

Although Kathleen and Kevin share the work between them things don't always go to plan. Funerals, community obligations and travelling take up a large proportion of Kathleen's time and so, occasionally, Fiona just has to tag along.

"Fiona has come to funerals with me and she's come down to the office on occasion and she's very good and she'll sit up and do some colouring. But I had an occasion recently when I was very glad that Fiona was invited to a birthday party, because it was a Saturday afternoon and I had three things on and Kevin was tied up. Divine intervention you might call it but these things have a way of sorting themselves out."

Sometimes, however, Kathleen has had be firm and put her family first. "There's been once or twice when I just opted out of the meeting, or whatever it was I was supposed to be at, when I've said: "I'm just about at breaking point, must go home." It does invade your time and politics does mean you have an irregular lifestyle.

Sometimes I say to myself that this is not a life for a parent, but it's a constant balancing exercise really. I try as much as I can to keep my work separate from my home. The challenge is to get the balance right.