Kenny insists nobody will be forced to quit job in debt deal

Nobody will be forced to give up their job where the cost of childcare exceeds their income in dealing with personal insolvency, the Taoiseach said this morning.

His comments on the issue come after Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar said childcare costs would have to be taken into account in insolvency arrangements if the outlay is preventing parents from making mortgage repayments.

Mr Kenny told the Dáil draft guidelines about the conditions for personal insolvency deals with banks would not make any condition about childcare costs being in excess of income.

He was responding to Fianna Fáil leader Micheal Martin who criticised the draft guidelines as "anti-women, anti-family and anti-employment".

Mr Martin called on the Taoiseach to confirm that people who earn less than the cost of their childcare will not be forced to give up their jobs and that the guidelines when finally published will ensure that these draft guidelines will be excluded and will not apply.

“I will so confirm” said the Taoiseach.

Mr Kenny said: “I want to make this perfectly clear to every person in the country, man and woman, particularly women that no guideline, no guideline laid down by the personal insolvency agency, will be mandatory or have a condition that anybody has to give up a job in the country in respect of determining their position.”

Controversial guidelines for personal insolvency situations had indicated women might be forced to stay home and women could be forced to give up their jobs.

They were published in the Sunday Business Post, which Mr Martin quoted, that “where a person is working and paying the childcare as a consequence for his or her employment the cost of childcare should not exceed the income of employment”.

Mr Martin noted comments by Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn “that it was a man who wrote the guidelines”.

Mr Kenny said “let's put an end now to any assertion, any allegation, any perception that somebody is going to be forced to give up their job” in a personal insolvency situation.

Mr Varadkar said yesterday nobody would be asked to give up their job under guidelines for families struggling with debt but conceded the new personal insolvency regime would examine childminding bills in cases where such costs exceeded income.

“I know one or two women . . . who probably don’t make very much money at all from working but they do it to keep their position on the career ladder, if you like,” he said.

“That’s a legitimate thing to do but if you can’t pay your mortgage as a result or you can’t buy your groceries as a result well then that’s something that needs to be taken into account in any insolvency arrangement.”

Mr Varadkar said the incoming insolvency scheme had to be fair to the approximately 90 per cent of people who were continuing to meet their mortgage debts, and stressed many were making very big sacrifices in order to pay their bills.

He said he did not know how many cases there were of a person’s childcare bills exceeding what they are earning at work.

“But I think if somebody is in that position whereby they’re actually losing money, it’s costing them money to work and as a result they can’t pay their mortgage, well then that is something that needs to be taken into account in any kind of insolvency regime.”