The cost of living crisis is having a significant impact on rural families due to their reliance on cars to get around, a Co Tyrone community worker says.
With fuel prices soaring to record highs and a lack of public transport infrastructure, people around the county often rely on their cars to get to work or get around. Some petrol stations are now charging more than £2 per litre for diesel
Mairead McCaughey, from Playtime Day Nursery, a not for profit community childcare organisation in the rural village of Eskra, says she can see the difficulties of families in the area every day. Rising costs have led to the group having to charge more for their childcare fees, which is leading some parents to give up their jobs as they struggle to cope with rising bills and fuel prices.
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“Eskra is a rural area and the cost of living crisis is having a huge impact on people here as we are just used to having to travel everywhere by car,” Mairead told Belfast Live.
“We have no public transport here apart from school buses. The cost of petrol and diesel is making people think twice about their journeys.
“People here would have maybe gone to Omagh regularly to meet up with friends or to bring their children somewhere but they are having to stop doing that now.
“As an organisation we are finding it difficult to recruit and retain people because not only is there a shortage of workers but with people having to travel here our pool is getting smaller and smaller.
“People are finding it difficult to make ends meet on these lower wages. We have had to put up our childcare fees due to our own costs and that is being passed on to our parents.
“To have to pass that on was such a difficult decision for us. What we are seeing is that people are actually giving up work as they can’t afford the price of childcare any more on top of everything else."
Mairead added that families are having to make hard decisions to make ends meet. In many cases that means cutting out leisure activities for their kids, which had been scuppered previously due to the pandemic as well.
“What parents are having to pay out at the moment just to keep families going here in rural areas is very difficult. It’s tough going and people are having to make hard decisions.
“The cost of travelling is often leading to many families that we deal with cutting out leisure time, not taking their children to swimming lessons or football or whatever it is they like to do.
“That has an impact on the child’s wellbeing obviously too. The pandemic had an impact on children’s opportunity so the last thing they need is to have those opportunities taken away again.
“In bigger towns and cities you have public transport or many things are within walking distance. It’s an expense that affects rural families more than most with the cost of fuel.
“It’s an excessive bill on top of everything else. It’s really quite worrying that we could see another recession coming down the line and what further impact that could have.”
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