"Budget discriminates against parents who do not want children in day care"

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Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

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An article by David Quinn in today's Indo:

This Budget discriminates against parents who do not want children in day care

"Budget 2017 discriminates against every parent of young children who does not use day care. That might mean you. Contrary to what you often read, only a minority of parents put their children into day care and only a minority want to. But the child-care plans outlined in yesterday's Budget are aimed exclusively at those who use day care and no-one else.
...
The real issue is that the plan egregiously discriminates against the very large number of parents who don't use day care and, crucially, don't want to either.
...
What Ms Zappone should have done is give a payment directly to parents of young children which they can use to subsidise any childcare option they want. That would be fair to everyone. Why did she go down the discriminatory route? Please explain, Minister."


This shows how crazy we have become. We introduce a child care package to allow people to go to work, and then people who are staying at home with their children want it as well!
 
Would allowing 20percent relief on tax paid for creche expenses be seen as less discriminatory? I wonder.

The point could then be made that those who work are bringing additional tax revenue
 
People who stay at home with children get 1100 home carers allowance.
Those on relatively normal wages who both work and have children older than 3 get nothing ( ie those most likely to be in negative equity). I'm not totally sure of means testing criteria but will assume it is for low paid ( not the famous squeezed middle).
Those with one young baby will get ~ a months free childcare.
Those with children aged 3-5 get a very small amount in free early childcare scheme.

One solution might have been to give ALL parents the same carers credit as stay at home parents. It would maybe stop articles like this being thrown around.
 
Those earning a combined income of €47,500 or more will not benefit in tax relief for childcare from 3 to 15 years old. Beginning to believe in the sqeezed middle yet?
 
I believe Quinn and 'they' want to give women the choice.
It's the Govt that want to push them all out to work whether they want to or not....tax individualisation by FF back in the noughties, now this from FG
 
phileasfogg said:
People who stay at home with children get 1100 home carers allowance.
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Not strictly the case. They have the option of either the home carers allowance or they can transfer their tax credits to their spouse, whichever is more beneficial.
I think David Quinn is entitled to his opinion and he does have a point here. It is very clear that the government prefer to have both parents working and children in childcare rather than have one parent stay at home. That is their prerogative and each couple can make their own choice as to which path they want to go down. But there is no doubt that this budget further influences the decision that couples make in favour of both parents working.
 
Thanks for that info. In my mind encouraging part time work through policy and legislation would be a good balance between parenting and getting tax into the system. But it appears to be a deeply unpalatable concept.
 
The mission statement of this budget was don't upset anyone, give a little something here there and everywhere, one for everybody in the audience...
They couldn't even get that right.

Whatever about the merits of this proposal, it seems like bad politics in hindsight.
 
At least they can't hit single fathers again; they took the single parent tax credit from fathers in 2014, even if the father has equal custody of the children. That was a reduction in tax credits of up to €2,490.00 per year. It only effected men though so nobody cared and it got little media attention.
 
Fianna Fáil is also calling for it to be given the stay at home mothers. I can't find a link to this, but I thought I heard one of their spokesmen say it on the radio.

Everyone seems to be out of touch with the reality of our financial position.

If they give it to stay at home parents, I will claim that it is discriminating against those of us who don't have children. We should all get it.

Brendan
 
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There seems to be pressure on alright to broaden the schemes just announced. Apparently Zappone is now looking at how to include childminders who operate under informal arrangements i.e. neighbour, relative etc.

Personally, I have an issue with all of these payments even though they would benefit myself in the near future as my wife plans to give up work to stay at home with our kids. They are all under 6 and its something we think would be best for them at this stage in their lifes. Things will be tight for us but its a decision we've made having weighed up the facts as they relate to us.

Why should the State pay a Mother to mind her own kids. Or a granny to mind her grandkids?
Why should the State pay everyone for every bit of work they do....is children's allowance not enough?

It brings me to another bugbear of mine- close relatives getting care allowance for minding their own family members. I know of sons/daughters who get carers allowance for 'minding' their own parents!!!Crazy IMO.

For the last few thousand years we have survived as a society with no payments being made for all of this type of work. And people weren't throwing their parents/kids on the side of the road because they weren't being paid to mind them. Why should the State now have to take from the tax pool to pay for all of this?
It's the ongoing infantilism (am I using the right word there?) of society where we expect the State to run every aspect of our lifes
 
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Ireland AM were talking about this and concluded "It's not for stay at home parents, and this must be fixed immediately". Madness.
 
I think the government have gone completely the wrong way about this. As odyssey said above, what they should have done here is give creches help to reduce their overheads (such as by giving them tax relief). This idea of giving money to parents is ridiculous, especially when there is already the child benefit being handed out. The way they have gone about this has left them wide open to criticism when they should be honest and say the real intended target of this measure are the creches, to help them reduce their costs and they should roll back on this initiative and come at it from that angle, rather than making it even worse by handing out more money to more parents.
 
Zappone just finished there on Sean O'Rourke.
She's going to look into what can be done for informal childminding arrangements in the home
 
Oh dear, I find myself agreeing with David Quinn. I have double checked, just in case, as it is a very worrying development, but it seems I really do. In this instance David Quinn is right.

Why should state policy drive childcare choices in a particular direction. Why should it push parents into the arms of state registered child care providers, away from informal or family based child care arrangements.

This is a conscious choice by government to push young children out of the home. It should be opposed.
 
If the informal childminders (grannies
cremeegg said:
Why should it push parents into the arms of state registered child care providers, away from informal or family based child care arrangements.
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How is it going to do that? It doesn't come close to covering the full cost of 'formal' childcare - do you think someone is going to incur a net cost just to get some state funds? If granny is free, who would move from this arrangement to something with a net cost?
 
orka said:
If the informal childminders (grannies
How is it going to do that? It doesn't come close to covering the full cost of 'formal' childcare - do you think someone is going to incur a net cost just to get some state funds? If granny is free, who would move from this arrangement to something with a net cost?
Click to expand...

Well if the state will give €205 per week (this is what I understood from listening to the minister on Sean O Rourke) to a registered childminder for looking after your child, but nothing to a family member, then I think that is a very strong push toward "registered child care providers, away from informal or family based child care"

And I think this is a very bad thing. Not because registered child care providers are necessarily worse than family childcare, but because it takes the choice away from parents, or at least heavily influences the factors behind that choice.
 
The State gives tax relief on registered tradesmen for repair work done to houses - what do those who criticise this move suggest the change should have been? More money to universal child benefit?
And we got over tax individualisation a decade ago - are people still harping on about Government pushing people out into the workforce?
 
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