Sir, – The Taoiseach has said that a proposal in new insolvency guidelines which, according to Minister for Transport, Leo Varadkar, would require women (and not parents) who are paying more for childcare than they earn to “give up their job”, has been dropped.
The proposal in question is an unbelievable example of how Government ministers are missing the point. There are very few countries in the world where childcare costs are routinely higher than take-home salary. Most countries that have an active female labour force invariably subsidise and support childcare as a basic civil entitlement. Several decades of research, including in Ireland, demonstrates the social and economic benefits of resourcing a robust childcare and early childhood education system.
This whole episode harks back to the situation in the 1970s when there was a legal ban in the civil service, requiring women to give up their jobs upon marriage, and indicates that an incredibly regressive attitude to women workers and childcare policies persists in the corridors of power. – Yours, etc,
Dr LINDA CONNOLLY,
Institute for Social Science in
the 21st Century,
UCC, Cork.
Sir, – There has been much angry reaction, including that from the National Women’s Council, to reports that the draft insolvency guidelines propose working mothers may be required to quit work if their income is less than their childcare costs (Front page, March 27th).
Surely a much more likely outcome is that stay-at-home mothers will be asked to get jobs? I wonder what response that might generate. – Yours, etc,
PETER MOLLOY,
Haddington Park,
Glenageary,
Co Dublin.