Sir, - I sincerely hope that the Minister for Finance will not rewrite the Budget. Certainly some steps will have to be taken in the Finance Bill, which is nothing new anyway and frequently happens, and it is clear that the low-paid have a very good case indeed for improvement. Your valuable series on the Budget in the first week of the year was helpful in the debate.
Mr McCreevy's innovative introduction of individualisation is a most welcome step. It is about time that every person at work was taxed as a separate, independent entity. It is logical, modern, and long overdue. To imagine that somehow this "attacks" a couple who have decided that they can afford for one of them to be a full-time homemaker, even when children are at school, is a nonsense. It is equally unacceptable that there should be any inference that parents who stay at home are more virtuous, or do a better job with their children, than those working outside the home.
I think we are all agreed that, when children are very small, parents and the State should be in partnership to make sure their care is the best possible. It is disappointing that as yet no government has really addressed this most important issue. When it comes to choices at a later stage, there is no justification for penalising the dual-income couple. The Minister has taken the right decision in this respect. - Yours, etc., Gemma Hussey,
Director, European Women's Foundation, Temple Road, Dublin 6.