Theresa Funiciello first came to prominence in the United States because she got driven thousands of miles all around the country in a yellow cab. Not exactly a confidence-inspiring claim to fame, perhaps, unless you have had the privilege of meeting Theresa, as I did last weekend, writes Breda O'Brien
A wry, self-deprecating woman, she explained that she had no particular desire to get into the Guinness Book of Records for a cab ride. She failed time and time again to get coverage in the media, or support from either progressives or conservatives, for an issue she was passionate about. A taxi drive from New York City to Washington by way of California seemed one way to break through the stonewalling by media and politicians.
Theresa Funiciello wanted to have a child tax credit made refundable. Doesn't sound that exciting, does it? However, she believes that it has the potential to grow into something revolutionary: that is, a recognition that all mothers work, and they all deserve financial recognition for their work, no matter where that work happens.
This is how a refundable tax credit operates. If you are fortunate enough to earn enough, a tax credit reduces your tax liability. If you are not earning enough to enter the tax bracket, the government sends you a cheque in the post. Getting a non-refundable tax credit for children in the US had been an uphill battle in the first place. However, since the credit was not refundable, low-income women who needed the money most were excluded.
Theresa has good reason to know what it is like to be poor. Now the director of the non-profit organisation called Social Agenda she helped to found, she was once a "welfare mother", a woman dependent on welfare to survive and to raise her child.
She has always worked on the principle that it is easier to expand an existing provision than to ask legislators to produce something entirely novel. She and other advocates succeeded in getting the tax credit made refundable a couple of years ago. Now she wants to extend it to all caregivers, and work on getting the amount raised. Currently it is worth about $1,000 per child.
Curam, the parent and carer NGO, was struck by the parallels in what Theresa is trying to achieve and its own objectives, and invited her to speak in Ireland. Curam, too, would like to see the work of parents valued, not just in platitudes, but in allowing people to make real choices as to how they want to care for their children. At the moment, policy in Ireland is almost entirely focused on women and men who wish to work outside the home, and who need others to care for their children as a result.
Curam has no difficulty with women who make that choice, but points out patiently that if one set of choices by women is supported by the state, another equally valid set of choices, that include the decision to be full-time parents and carers, should also be supported.
Providing childcare and education credits for all parents and carers would allow the family to decide on how to spend them, whether on childcare or facilitating more care by parents. This is not the same as just increasing child benefit, because all carers would be eligible.
Also, because the credit would be taxable, it could be the start of a process where women and men who are full-time at home become eligible for some of the protections that workers in employment now enjoy, such as pensions and social insurance. Eventually it could be seen as the carer's source of income, if it reached levels approximating to the market value of care.
Would such a credit be prohibitively expensive? Well, a universal system of childcare outside home would be extraordinarily expensive, too. Love or hate universal childcare, the Scandinavians that we are always citing as paragons pay very high taxes for the privilege. We will not have either an institutional childcare system, or one that honours the choice either to work outside the home or inside it, without paying higher taxes.
There is a very practical reason for facilitating parents in making their own decisions about childcare. At the moment, if you will pardon the expression, there is a bulge in the child-bearing figures in Ireland.
However, Government statisticians know that it is only a blip, for complex reasons, including the fact that many women are having "last-chance children" because they have already delayed childbirth for so long. In a few decades Ireland will experience the same population implosion that is worrying other Europeans so much and causing them to fear for their pensions, their welfare systems and even social stability.
If we want to prevent a precipitous drop in population, we have to make it easier for women to have children, including allowing those who choose to, to stay at home.
Penelope Leach recently revived the debate about childcare. The conclusions of a large study of some 1,200 mothers were that babies were better off, in order of preference, with mothers, qualified childminders or grandparents. Nurseries were the least satisfactory solution for babies under two.
The reaction in Britain was swift and savage, as Ms Leach was condemned as being sexist, and wanting to drive women back to the kitchen. A typically biting reaction came from Zoe Williams in the Guardian. She concluded her piece, which condemned the fact that the research happened at all, with these words: "Ask not whether it's true: ask whether it's helpful. Ask whether there's anything anyone can do."
If that response came as a reaction to New Labour's policy that all women should be in the workplace, fair enough. But let's take Zoe's question at face value, and ask whether there's anything anyone can do. The answer, of course, is Yes, which relieves us of the necessity to rubbish research simply because its conclusions are unpalatable.
There are solutions, including Curam's proposed credit, that allow parents make their own decisions about childcare. Maybe we need Theresa Funiciello to make her next round trip from New York to Washington via the European Union.
