Madam, - After seven years this Government has finally been stirred into some action on childcare. However, the proposals reportedly to be brought before Cabinet (The Irish Times, June 15th) bear all the hallmarks of the jaded thinking of a Government which knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. As with income tax individualisation, the Government believes all human relations can be reduced to euro and cent.
Clearly some form of financial assistance to working parents can play a part in easing our childcare problems but it is only one piece of the jigsaw. There is no mention in the proposals of addressing the Government's dismal record in providing proper leave for parents. So while millions will be spent in tax relief and child benefit, there is no guarantee that any parent will be able to redress the serious imbalance between work and family life.
Ireland remains at the bottom of the European league in terms of paid leave for parents of newly born and pre-school children. Paternity leave for fathers is, according to the Government's Oasis website, "unrecognised in Irish law". Parental leave remains an unpaid luxury for the better off. The Government had a chance to remedy this situation in the recent Parental Leave Bill but left matters precisely as they are. There is precious little action by the Government in providing a statutory basis for workplace flexibility in all areas (including the private sector and small and medium sized businesses).
Before deciding to provide more money and resources for hard-pressed working parents by attempting to socially engineer our lifestyles, perhaps the Government should revisit the issues over which it has direct control by introducing a proper system of maternity, paternity and parental leave for working parents, drawing on the example of other European countries. - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL McLOUGHLIN, Riverwood Heath, Castleknock, Dublin 15.