Madam, – Prior to the announcement of the supplementary Budget, the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) carried out a survey on the importance of child benefit for parents in Ireland. 94 per cent of respondents to the NWCI child benefit Survey considered this payment to be an important part of their current income. Responses came from women working both inside and outside the home and revealed that child benefit is currently being used for many purposes: buying clothes, shoes, food, paying for after-school activities, and childcare and for some; simply keeping a roof over their children’s heads.
The contradictory nature of Sarah Carey’s piece (Opinion, April, 8th) is not plausible. Ms Carey’s sentiment that “a non-judgmental equal payment for all children is the only solution. It puts all parents and all mothers on an equal status” is correct; however this payment already exists, in the form of child benefit. Why then argue to make it discriminatory and propose means testing or taxing it?
The NWCI is calling for the choices of parents to be recognised and therefore urges the Minister for Finance to reverse his decision to either means-test or tax child benefit.
Child benefit is the “bread and butter” for many parents who find the current crisis hard to bear – taxing or means-testing this universal payment will only make their situation worse.
For many women, the reality is that without child benefit, they could not afford to work, as they could not afford childcare and without paid work, they are at greater risk of poverty, which impacts on a person’s physical and mental well-being (a link recognised by the WHO). This is the reality for women living in poverty. This in no way means, however, that the Women’s Council of Ireland is saying that to mind one’s own children is a physical and mental disaster, as Sarah Carey claims.
Women’s lives are complex and should not be boxed so simply into those who “work in the home” and those who “work outside the home”. This segregation does not reflect the real lives of women who move in and out of paid employment primarily for care reasons. All women work in the home, whether in paid employment, part-time or full-time.
The NWCI has simultaneously campaigned for a publicly funded quality childcare infrastructure, redistribution of care work between women and men, strong policies to reconcile work and family life and the recognition of care work. A priority for the NWCI has been the acknowledgment of care work within the home, (arguing that care work should receive full recognition within the social welfare system), of full pension and maternity entitlements and highlighting the discrimination against women who have spent years of their life caring and contributing to society and now find themselves in their older years at risk of poverty.
The NWCI also acknowledges the importance of childcare for women who want to work; those who have to work and for those who want to participate in society in the form of voluntary/ community/ political work, and it welcomes the free pre-school year in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE), as a start to providing quality childcare.
The challenge for policy now is to both accommodate and respect care work and to support women’s economic equality. Should this not be our focus, rather than pitting women against women at a time when we should be standing in solidarity? – Yours, etc,