My children do get the benefit
Thursday November 26 2009
Well done, Kevin Myers (Irish Independent, November 25) for highlighting another touchy subject. As "a stay-at-home mother whose family is financially dependent on the at-work father" on €33,000, I am utterly dependent on child benefit.
This benefit pays for clothes, heating, books, electricity etc.
I can hear the feminists in the National Women's Council (NWC) saying 'well you could make up for it if you went back to work'. This is fine if you earn over €50,000 (as I am sure most of these women do) but my income four years ago was €16,000 and so barely covered the cost of childcare, travel etc, and it made more sense, in the short term, to stay at home.
I am not complaining, I made a choice and it has been worthwhile. This is the only benefit we receive; we don't qualify for FIS, back-to-school allowance etc, and so it is a lifesaver.
The health levy on my husband's salary has hit us by €50 a week which has made a huge dent in our income. Maybe now we'll qualify for 'entitlements', or maybe I can persuade him to get fired and then we could claim €40,000 a year.
I have recently retrained as an SNA (Special Needs Assistant), but the Government didn't think this area was worthy of funding, unlike the National Women's Council.
Currently, if I were to return to full-time work the costs in a community creche would be as follows -- €180 per week for one pre-school child and €142 per week for after-school care for two children, a total of €322 per week or €16,744 per year. Maybe the €1m in funding given to the NWC could go towards childcare or child benefit or SNAs, anything but the NWC.
Michele Tobin
Rush, Co Dublin
Irish Independent
