Referring to comments made by Minister Katherine Zappone in which she said that she had consulted with stakeholders before coming to a decision around the new childcare package, Pauline O’Reilly spokesperson for STAY-AT- HOME PARENTS ASSOCIATION, said “There has been no consultation with our association. We would welcome a response to the requests for a meeting made by us over the past number of weeks and question the motivations around a decision to prioritise consultations with some advocacy groups to the exclusion of others”.
The association is critical of direct childcare subsidies of up to €8,000 announced this week, which will leave families where a parent chooses to provide the childcare for their own children at a massive financial disadvantage and remove the feasibility of doing so for a large segment of the population.
The measure, defended by Dr. Katherine Zappone, TD, Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, will compound financial disadvantages introduced by tax individualisation in the year 2000. The €100 increase in Home Carer Tax Credit also announced in last Tuesday’s budget comes nowhere near to redressing the huge imbalance in the tax paid by single income families compared to dual income families. Additionally, the tax credit does not apply to those outside of the tax net, those who are unmarried or not in a civil partnership.
The spokeperson said “A household with a stay-at- home parent is already on a reduced income which amounts to its cost of childcare, so should be placed on equal footing with regard to tax and childcare subsidies. All families have the financial burden of bringing up the next generation and should be supported equally. Up until now the needs of some families have been forgotten or ignored. Promotion of a particular form of childcare suggests a nanny state mentality, when what we need is family and community support in order to make decisions that best suit the needs of our families”.
ASSURANCES REJECTED
“Assurances that the measures outlined in the budget are a first step to help families with the cost of childcare completely fail to recognise that inequalities set up now will immediately force parents into financial hardship as they compete for rent, mortgages and so on, with families whose childcare is subsided. This leaves them with no option but to use a model of childcare funded by the government. While we acknowledge the hard work of the Minister, we thoroughly fail to understand the lack of trust in parents to do what is best for their own children”.
The Minister has also commented that the government had made a decision not to increase Child Benefit in Budget 2017 and to instead “invest in the services and subsidise the services that were there for our children”. “We find it shocking that there has been no public debate on a policy to invest in hand-picked services rather than direct support for families” Pauline O’Reilly has said.
END
[SOURCE: Journal.ie Ministers
Questionshttps://www.facebook.com/thejournal.ie/videos/1243194409034314/ ]
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Contact:
Catherine Walsh, 085 7174480
Pauline O’Reilly, 083 0044711
Twitter: @SAHPIreland
SAHPIreland@gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/homeparentsireland/