Madam, - It is with dismay, shock and deep sadness that I discover today that the Government has cut childcare funding to VECs by 37 per cent.
This cut is a slap in the face to single parents and all those who work towards improving the quality of life of single parents and their children.
In an economic climate where even "double income" families find it increasingly difficult to meet childcare costs, what hope has the single parent of ever being able to avail of employment or educational opportunities, when the little help they were receiving towards their childcare has been withdrawn?
The result of this drastic measure will be that many single parents who had planned to return to education on VTOS and Youthreach programmes will now be unable to do so.
This is a very short-sighted move by the government as it ultimately means that those single parents who were endeavouring to escape the net of being trapped on social welfare are now almost certainly condemned to remain on it for the foreseeable future. And this because our Government thinks that subsidising child-care for low income families who return to education in order to improve their lives and that of their children is a waste of money!
Another outcome of this measure will undoubtedly be an increase in abortion as a solution to a crisis pregnancy. We in Life Pregnancy Care Service who have counselled and supported thousands of women experiencing a crisis pregnancy over many years, have identified the cost of childcare as one of the factors that contributes towards a pregnancy being a crisis.
To remove what little support there was towards child-care will ensure that more and more unplanned pregnancies will become crisis pregnancies.
I call on the Taoiseach to reconsider this bizarre decision and restore the child-care budget to the VECs immediately. - Yours, etc.,
JULIA HEFFERNAN, Public Relations Officer, Life Ireland, Patrick Street, Cork.