Sir, - I would like to reply to all the stay-at-home husbands and wives who have been clogging up the airwaves. Currently a married couple with children who both work are worse off than a married couple with children who have only one breadwinner, where that breadwinner earns a wage equal to the combined income of the working couple. They are worse off in terms of net income after they have paid their child-minding expenses. They are worse off in terms of how much time their family can spend together.
A family where both parents work will not have a higher disposable income by virtue of the higher tax allowance. They will have a higher disposable income by virtue of the fact that they are earning more money. They simply won't be penalised as much for working as they were before.
A tax system cannot promote equality unless it discriminates in favour of those whom circumstance and prejudice discriminates against. Here it is discriminating in favour of women who want to work. This measure may be late and it may be born of the Government's concerns over labour shortages, but that doesn't mean it's bad. Stay-at-home child-minders are owed no apology for this discrimination in favour of working couples as it is not a discrimination against them. It is a discrimination against all other taxpayers.
Stay at home partners should pipe down for a moment and give the single people a chance to moan and the married people who choose to have no children a chance to chuckle. - Yours, etc.,
Eamonn Smith, Glenamuck Road, Carrickmines, Dublin 18.