The Government must deliver multi-million pound tax relief on childcare in the next Budget if it is to honour commitments in successive national agreements, an ICTU executive member has warned.
Speaking on motions for better childcare and other "work/ life balance" issues, Ms Rosheen Callender told the ICTU conference that a commitment in 1999 to introduce tax relief worth at least £17 a week "must be honoured in the next Budget".
She described the Budget as "this Government's last chance on this issue" and accused it of "political cowardice" in avoiding measures to help working parents. The ATGWU's regional women's officer, Ms Fiona Marshall, said that as a mother of two and a full-time union official, she found the biggest barrier to "work/life balance" to be the attitudes of employers and some trade union officials.
Ms Renee Prendergast of the Irish Federation of University Teachers said colleagues without children sometimes resented family-friendly initiatives and it was important to remove artificial barriers to the debate.