Parents must be free to choose how best to rear their children

Cash payments work for families. Robert Putnam, the US author of Bowling Alone, quotes research showing that a €3,000-a-year-payment in a child’s first three years improves that child’s academic performance and increases his or her eventual salary by 20%.

The official approval for investing in out-of-home childcare services to the cost of at-home care, which has been expressed this week following Minister Regina Doherty’s comment that she would look at cutting Child Benefit to fund childcare, is rooted in simplistic economic calculus.

What’s deemed important at official levels is getting women into paid jobs so they can make up the deficit of births in a dying First World without recourse to immigrants.