Each day Jacqui Kelly, a mother of three from Cork, faces difficult decisions.
"It can be whether to pay the rent, or pay for my son to go on a school trip," she says. "Whether to get them a treat, or go deeper into debt. In the winter, it'll be about whether I can afford to put the heating on. There are lots of dilemmas."
She and her children, aged between 12 and 15, live on €200 a week in their council house in Mahon. It is stretched over the week to pay for bills and food. She is lucky if there's €5 left over once essentials have been paid for, she says.
"It's hard to say No all the time to the kids, but I've always been honest with them. They accept it. It's either that, or get deeper into debt."
She says many people in authority are unaware of the effects on grinding poverty and how widespread it is in society.
"It's so well hidden. People don't want to be stigmatised, so they try and hide it. But the scale of it is unnatural. It's about time society woke up to it. "It affects children in lots of ways, like their self-esteem, education. They can end up getting bullied. Families face difficult decisions that they should not have to face."
She says the Government could take tangible steps to tackle the issue, through welfare increases such as a rise in the Child Dependant Allowance which, she says, has been frozen for a decade."
Peggy Tabbs of the Mahon Family Support Project, which Jacqui Kelly attends, says funding for services on the ground can also play a crucial role in tackling poverty.
"There are lots of things, like summer schemes and basic support, which can make a big difference to a family. The summer scheme allows families to do simple things, like going to the beach or a barbecue," she says.