Madam, - As a mother who decided a number of years ago to stay at home to care for her children, the tabular summary of take-home pay changes in your Budget Supplement again highlights what this Minister for Finance has done to me, and to people like me, over recent years.
Madam, - As a mother who decided a number of years ago to stay at home to care for her children, the tabular summary of take-home pay changes in your Budget Supplement again highlights what this Minister for Finance has done to me, and to people like me, over recent years.
The table shows that, by way of change in monthly take-home pay, a married couple with one earner will gain roughly half as much as a two-income family on the same income. And presumably, because of current tax structures, this is a pattern that we can expect to see in future years. This Government trumpets its "reform" of the tax system, but let us not forget the losers in this great enterprise of Mr McCreevy's.
There was a lot of clever spin put out when this individualisation concept was sprung on us some years ago, referring to the childcare costs of those on two incomes, the fact that they have to run two cars, and buy their lunches out.
All of this was designed to disguise the fundamental objective, which was to disadvantage one-income families to an extent that mothers are forced back to power the mills of IBEC.
No-one would object to recognition being given to legitimate childcare costs - through, for example, making them tax allowable. However, very many families where both spouses are working do not have childcare costs, because their kids are older and are perhaps at school all day. The children may be even past that stage and working themselves. However, such couples, or couples who have no children at all, are all now advantaged relative to single-income families. This is simply wrong.
It is also putting legs under things to suggest that all two-income families need two cars. Some do, but some clearly don't, but yet all get the benefit of individualisation. I won't even dignify the line about having to buy sandwiches out, which was suggested as justification for individualisation when the concept was first mooted. It is no more valid than my saying that because we are in the home all day, our heating costs are much higher.
Much is made by Government Ministers of the benefits for single taxpayers, but let us not forget that this has been at the expense of single-income families. Mr McCreevy clearly thinks that twenty-somethings are more deserving of new cars and several holidays a year than my children are of being properly provided for. Certainly foreign holidays or new cars simply do not arise for my family.
What is also conveniently forgotten is that these twenty-somethings will need to have their pensions funded by the working population of the future, of which my four children will form a part. Where does this feed into Mr McCreevy's long-term vision? The crisis in this area is the reason for our huge investment in the Pension Fund.
What is clear is that none of the above will make any difference to Mr McCreevy, who is clearly ideologically driven on this. However, that does not make it fair, and it is clearly socially divisive. As such it is bad policy. - Yours, etc.,
ELAINE MURPHY,
Beverly Grove,
Dublin 16.
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Madam, - Could some member of the Government, or of the parties in Government, please explain to me the morality (not the economics - as a professionally trained economist I can see the good but mostly bad and ugly in the Budget from that perspective) of workers on the minimum wage paying tax, children sitting in damp, vermin-infested schools, and single-income families being further disadvantaged versus their double-income neighbours, while billionaire stud farm owners are exempt from tax? - Yours, etc.,
BRIAN M. LUCEY,
Sallins Bridge,
Sallins,
Co Kildare.