Women in the home ‘are treated unfairly’

FULL-TIME home workers are struggling to make ends meet because of the shift in priority towards working parents, a lobby group has claimed.

Mother of seven, Caitríona Lynch, chairwoman of Women in the Home (WITH), said people like her had become victims of social change.

“We feel abandoned by the women’s movement and totally unrecognised and unrepresented at Government and official level,” she said yesterday.

Ms Lynch said their request to be represented in the last round of partnership talks had been turned down.

“We have been told we don’t meet the criteria to become one of the social partners. We believe we do and are seeking clarification on the issue.”

By far the greatest blow to the estimated 50,000 home workers has been the process of individualisation of the tax system that began in 2000. “Under the new tax regime we simply don’t exist,” said Ms Lynch.

The system, introduced by Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy, meant families with one parent working full-time in the home ended up paying more in tax than dual income married couples.

In response to initial opposition to his proposal to introduce individualisation, Mr McCreevy introduced the home carer tax credit. But even if the one-income married couple qualify for the home carer credit, tax as a percentage of earnings is still higher than the two-income couple.

“For the first time in the history of the State the Government actually introduced social engineering by supporting one way of life but not another,” Ms Lynch said.

She challenged Mr McCreevy on individualisation and he responded by saying he was going to fully implement it.

Ms Lynch said she was very disappointed when the women’s movement declared that the continuing stereotype of women as mothers and carers was proving to be a stumbling block to the equality of women.

“Because they hold that point of view they simply won’t support us,” she said.

“Parents have the right to choose how their children are reared and nobody, least of all a government elected by the people and for the people, should be dictating how they should live their lives,” she said.

WITH is to hold a conference next Saturday in the Mercer Hotel in Dublin to highlight the changes in family life. Guest speaker will be MEP Dana Rosemary Scallon.