The Government is having a tough time with partnership. Between taxi drivers, teachers and signal workers, Ministers wring their hands at the way interest groups are allegedly breaking their part of the bargain.
But one of the biggest breaches is happening on the non-pay side. And it is the Government, not the social partners, which is failing to keep its word. This is the year when the Government promised to get childcare right. After last year's childcare Budget fiasco, if that word is not too mild, the Taoiseach, Tanaiste, Ministers for Finance and Justice swore blind they'd deliver the full bundle for working and stay-home parents. The agreed time was now. The place is here. After that, there is a great big void.
Instead of devising a childcare package, the Government's rumour mill is sending feelers out about increases in child benefit. And only child benefit. Not tax relief, not a parent payment, not individualisation of the social welfare process to respect the rights of parents working in the home. But a simple throwing around of money to buy the Government time.
Child benefit is a welfare measure, not a care measure. Its function is to minimise inequality and help children directly. The cash helps to buy shoes, schoolbooks, clothes if you're middling well-off. If not, it puts vitamins in little tummies and maybe a hot water bottle in bed at night. No one disputes the need to increase child benefit. A third of Irish children live below the 60 per cent poverty line. But another two-thirds do not. In failing to distinguish between different circumstances, blanket benefit measures do no more than reinforce the status quo.
SO what about childcare? The Government's commitment to deliver affordable childcare for all is written into the partnership agreement. What that recognised for the first time is Government acknowledging it is a partner of consequence in the business of bringing children up.
The other partners agreed it would take a few years to deliver the entire package. Significantly, it was the Government which decided the time to start was now.
But instead of the cohesive package needed, and agreed, the Government is now acting as though the problem has gone away. A little bit of movement on child protection, a little bit on what they persist in calling "the supply side", and that's it.
It is not enough. Out-at-work parents are being treated with disdain. Expected to build the economy, while simultaneously building the next generation, their sense of duty and responsibility is exploited by politicians who seem to have no understanding of what is involved. Childcare costs for younger children are now running as high as an average mortgage. This presents a number of contradictions. Firstly, it makes a muddle of attempts to persuade parents into the workplace, because of the minimal difference between average take-home pay and childcare costs, especially when other out-at-work expenses are added.
Secondly, and more seriously, it undermines the status of the child by bringing the issue of cost into the marital or other bed where two people hope to conceive a baby. You give birth to a baby: in tomorrow's Ireland, you'll end up delivering a series of financial and social obstacles that will make you think twice about doing it again.
Thirdly, it adds unnecessarily to the increased stresses of child-rearing. Imagine what it is like to come home after a long, hard day and see shining eyes waiting to smile at you, but be too tired and tense to respond as you'd wish. Imagine how much you want to put your children first, but find yourself so busy earning a living you can't chill out long enough to have real fun.
This is happening because Government will not act realistically. The task is considerable, because Ireland has neither childcare supports nor facilities in place, unlike many other EU countries. But even here confusion rules. Those incessant American market values which drive Charlie McCreevy and Mary Harney are child blind, and parent unfriendly.
Harney's failure to integrate social and economic policies is music to indecisive Fianna Fail ears, which have remained deaf to parents' reality for all its time in Government. Last year, Fianna Fail delivered its 1997 election promise to introduce tax relief for stay-home parents, although it did not follow through by recognising them as individuals in the welfare system.
This year, no equivalent measure is rumoured for out-at-work parents. How unfair is that? The inequity increases for younger parents and for urban parents. Accommodation costs in urban areas particularly are less affordable to those who have not had time to think about a nest egg, let alone build one.
Younger parents who may want to stay home while their children are infants are being indirectly coerced into situations they might not otherwise choose. Although some welcome changes to the Maternity Act were introduced recently, these do not affect many contract workers or freelance workers unless their employers operate out of largesse.
Parenting and childcare are such a big part of people's lives that Government must take parents' needs seriously. Take a test: add up your children's ages consecutively to measure your parenting time. Let's say you have three children, aged nine, seven and four. That amounts to 20 years.
The Taoiseach's parenting time reaches almost 40 years, which is within 10 years of his own age. The Minister for Finance's parenting years exceed his own age. If you're thinking about starting a baby, imagine their faces in your marital bed. Then when the birth rate starts falling, we'll understand why.
mruane@irish-times.ie