Suffer little children

THE mums of the Li’l Rascals Playgroup have a few misperceptions they’d like to clear up.

“I don’t use child benefit to buy myself shoes,” pleads mother-of-four Rachel O’Sullivan.

There are nods of support. The image that persists of yummy mummies indulging in fancy lunches and designer footwear courtesy of pocket money from the state really irks them.

“It’s part of my housekeeping,” Susan Wrafter explains. “It’s there at the end of the month when there’s a stretch to the next pay day. I think that’s the case with most people.”

And yet Susan, Rachel and the other mothers who meet in the Cois Sleibhe Community Hall in Bray, Co Wicklow, two mornings a week accept that the system of child benefit payments needs to be overhauled and that, they concede, means reducing the figure paid out each month.

“I know of people who put their children’s allowance in a bank account for when their child is 19 or 20. I think it should be money that’s needed now. If it’s not needed, it shouldn’t be given,” Susan says.

Ann Marie Grace agrees. “It’s unfair that everybody gets the same amount. The Government was using child benefit to buy votes. The problem is that now they can’t afford it, they’re probably going to cut everyone and that will hit worst those who need it the most.”

“I could take a cut on child benefit so long as that’s it,” says Sarah Doyle. “But I’m just worried that we’re going to get hit on all sides. We would be considered a middle income family and I know that we’re going to be the people who, come the budget, it’ll be a case of ‘we’ll have some of that and have some of this and take a bit of that’ and when it’s all added up, you end up losing a lot.”

Losing is what everyone involved in raising, caring for or campaigning on behalf of children expects to experience come budget day.

Children’s Minister Barry Andrews warned recently that he could not protect child services from cutbacks.

Nor can he offer any protection from his cabinet colleague in charge of social welfare, Éamon Ó Cuív, who is widely expected to reduce the child benefit payment.

Exactly how, we don’t know. The four-year National Recovery Plan refers obscurely to replacing the payment with “a rebalanced and integrated child income support payment system”.

Ever since the big increases in child benefit in the early part of the decade (up one-third from £42.50 to £67.50 in the 2001 budget and again by another third to €117.60 in the 2002 budget), the question has been asked whether the generosity (or vote-getting strategy, depending on your viewpoint) could be better applied to ensure those most in need benefited most.

Talk of means-testing or taxing the payment has periodically raised its head and it seemed the Government had come around to that way of thinking too when in April this year Finance Minister Brian Lenihan warned: “The Government does not think that it is fair to pay the same level of benefit irrespective of the level of income of the recipient.

“For that reason, the Government has decided that child benefit will be means-tested or taxed in the budget for next year.”

Last month, Barry Andrews backed that position.

All the Government think-tanks, An Bord Snip, the Commission on Taxation and the ESRI, agree, and also recommend removing the tax exemption from child benefit.

The IMF also supports that view, reporting in June last year, long before it took up residence here, that universal social benefits were unsustainable.

However, it is also widely accepted that having to assess every one of the 603,000 recipient families and tailor the payment to match their means would, in the short term at least, cost more than it would save.

That means another across-the-board cut like last April’s €16 reduction could be on the cards.

PACUB, Parents Against Child Unfriendly Budget, is a campaign group set up in advance of last year’s anticipated cut in child benefit.

Spokeswoman Jane Mooney acknowledges the argument for removing all or part of the payment from the wealthy, but she too believes a far cruder method of cost-cutting will be employed.

“The timing for a cut couldn’t be worse. In a lot of families, child benefit is paying bills, helping with the mortgage, putting food on the table.

“We’re hearing from people who are selling furniture to try and make ends meet. There was a woman who sold jewellery to buy nappies.

“Even the middle income earners who might on paper look like they are doing well — they have taken job losses, pay cuts, income levies and they are really struggling.

“Child benefit is the only payment made by the Government to show our children they are valued. Our children are going to be paying for the country’s mess for a long, long time after this government is gone. They could at least leave the child benefit alone.”

While state spending on the payment increased four-fold to €2.5 billion over the last decade, the cost of maternity benefit multiplied six-fold to over €330 million through not only the baby boom of recent years but the extension of maternity leave from 14 weeks to 26 weeks.

At Li’l Rascals there is a collective sigh of relief among the mums that their families are already started and in some cases complete.

“You’d nearly be afraid to get pregnant now,” Susan Wrafter admits.

The scrapping of the early childcare supplement took almost €1,000 per child per year out of their household budget and its replacement by the free part-time pre-school year (the Early Childhood Care and Education scheme) didn’t make up for the loss.

The fear now is that the ECCE too could go or be restricted. “If it goes, then this little man gets no playschool,” Rachel O’Sullivan says of her youngest, who will be two in the new year.

HILDA DAMMAN is living proof that professional childcare has become an unaffordable luxury for many parents. She recently lost her job in charge of the toddler playgroup at a local crèche because there were no longer enough children to make the service viable.

She pops into the playgroup because she misses working with children. “If it wasn’t for the ECCE scheme, the whole crèche would close and I think it’s a step backwards for children and parents, and particularly women, when high quality childcare facilities close,” says the Belgian who can’t help but compare the situation here with her home country.

“In Belgium every little thing is subsidised by the government — private crèches, public crèches. There is no question that the children get the care and education their parents want them to have.”

That’s the ideal world that Startstrong, an advocacy group campaigning for improvements in early care and education for children, would love to see replicated here. But the ideal seems a long way off at the moment.

“Our immediate concern is the maintenance of the free preschool year,” says director, Ciarín de Buis.

“We do realise we are in very dire economic circumstances, but we are acutely conscious of the impact early care and education in childhood can have on long-term development.”

However, schools too are expected to lose funding in the budget — meaning certain abandonment of the Government’s stated policy of reducing class sizes, a lack of capital investment for dilapidated buildings or replacement of prefabs, and concern for the future of special needs assistants (SNAs).

“We raised €42,000 to fix the heating system — and that was during the boom,” says Rachel O’Sullivan of the necessity for parents to fundraise for basic comforts at the primary school her two older children attend.

“There were days when my daughter had to sit in the classroom with her coat on. That’s wrong.”

Ann Marie Grace’s daughter is in a junior infant class with 30 children — a long way from the target of 20 children per class for all under nines promised by the Government.

Rachel’s daughters’ school has nine-year-olds in a class of 36 — also a long way off the target of having no primary school child in a class of more than 29.

With large class sizes, the SNAs are all the more important.

“My two girls don’t need SNAs but there are children in the class who do. If the SNA goes, the teacher’s job becomes impossible,” says Rachel.

Sarah Doyle’s young son, who has just started school, would be directly affected by the loss of his class SNA.

“He’s a borderline autism case and needs speech and language support, so I’d be really worried that the SNA will be cut. He shares the SNA with other children so, hopefully, she will be spared, but the fact that he’s borderline puts him in a weaker position for holding on to her. He’s doing well and reaching his potential, but if the SNA is removed I don’t know where that will leave him.”

The mothers also have concerns about how cuts to health services in the budget impact on their children .

Rachel’s youngest son was feared deaf as a young baby and was put on a waiting list for detailed tests. The wait would have been 18 months if his parents hadn’t decided to go private.

“It turned out he had fluid in his ears and he was treated. He’s now 20 months and he’s talking and developing fine, but if I’d waited to have him seen publicly he’d only be getting treated now. He wouldn’t be talking and he’d be really far behind.”

His older brother is stuck on a waiting list. “He has a huge problem with food allergies and needs to see a dietician. We could go privately and have an appointment within days but it would cost €180. Going publicly, we have to wait eight months.”

Sarah Doyle has a similar issue. Unable to keep an appointment for her little girl to have her unsteady walking checked out, she rang well in advance to reschedule and was told her daughter was being put back to the end of the queue.

“That was in July and we’ve heard nothing since. I just want to know where did the money go in the boom and what have we to show for it?”

There are more nods of support. “I worry about what kind of country we have created for our children. Is there going to be jobs for them? Is there going to be affordable education and a proper health system? I accept that there is no money and the country is on its knees so you know somewhere in the budget it’s going to pain you. But it should not hurt little people.”

Child benefits

* Child benefit was paid to 602,932 families last year in respect of 1,156,917 children at a cost of €2.5 billion.

* The payment is currently €150 per month for each of the first two children and €187 for each subsequent child.

* The majority of families (76%) claimed for one or two children. The number of children eligible for payment rose by 14,979 between 2008 and 2009 and the cost rose 1.7% or €41 million.

* A similar increase is expected next year as new births continue to exceed the number of children growing out of the scheme.

* The four-year National Recovery Plan talks of introducing a flat rate payment for all children with additional supports for low income families, but it is unclear how quickly this can be organised or whether it will negate the need for a straightforward cut in benefit in the budget.

* Maternity benefit was paid to 23,274 women last year at a cost of €331m. The payment is between €225.80 and €270 per week, depending on the recipient’s previous earnings.

* The cost of the scheme increased by €15m (up 4.9%) last year. There is no reference to it in the four-year plan and the Government’s thinking on it is unknown.