Sir, - I am a full-time parent - not a "housewife" as the front page of The Irish Times last Friday would suggest - and I have no intention of being "helped out of my kitchen" by Charlie McCreevy, the mandarins of IBEC or anyone else. I have experienced many jobs in the paid labour market and none has been as challenging, as complex or as rewarding as the job I do now. Our single income of £26,000 must feed and clothe two adults and three children, pay a mortgage and all the bills, and run a car. I can organise our family budget to meet everyone's needs without insulting or downgrading anyone. Just because a job is unpaid does not mean it is unskilled.
Living, by choice, with limited resources, teaches you the difference between wanting something and actually needing it. I am only too aware that many families survive on far less than we have. Indeed, if we hadn't had the good fortune to buy a house in 1993, I would not have been able to choose to be a full-time parent. I would have been forced into the labour market against my will just to put a roof over my children's heads. There was a time when women were forced to work in the home irrespective of their feelings on the matter. It seems IBEC and the Government still think women can be pushed around when it suits them.
I support parents who choose to work in paid employment and I deplore the lack of childcare facilities. A budget that gives a tax break to a double-income couple earning more than £40,000 who have no children, while ignoring a double-income couple earning less than that amount no matter how many children they have, does not address the childcare crisis. And a Government which tries to coerce women into the paid labour market while refusing refugees the right to work is offensive.
And now, if you'll excuse me, it's nine o'clock at night and I have work to do. - Yours, etc.,
Isabelle Crowe, The Walled Gardens, Celbridge, Co Kildare.