Sir, - Please allow me to present the following facts, which may restore some balance to the hysterical arguments put forward in your pages since Charlie McCreevy's Budget.
1. Many of the single incomeincome married couples are in the enviable position where they can choose not to work outside the home.
2. No one is disadvantaged in this Budget (not the single person, not the married couple on a single income, not the married couple where both are working).
3. The changes affect tax on earned income.
4. A married couple on one income can earn up to £28,000 before they become liable to tax at the high rate. This is a difference of £11,000 over what is allowed the single person. This substantial extra is most generous, and certainly well above what is available in other European states.
5. This Budget goes some way to redressing the inequity endured by single people for so long in the past.
6. Married couples with two incomes have finally been recognised as individual earners and taxpayers, with rights to commensurate allowances, i.e. double the single person's. The additional costs borne by such couples have also finally been recognised. That is at the kernel of the proposed changes.
Finally, let us lay to rest the myth that being a good wife or husband, mother or father is the sole preserve of the stay-at-home parent with the single-income partner. I would call on all double-income partners to speak up on this entire Budget issue, and be not made to feel guilty by he comments of journalists, politicians or even bishops. - Yours, etc.,
P.J. Sheehy, Coolgreany, Gorey, Co. Wexford.