Childcare cuts will impact on pregnancies

IT IS with dismay that I discover the Government has cut childcare funding to the VECs by 37%.

This is a slap in the face to single parents and all those who work towards improving the quality of life of single parents and their children.

Many single parents who had planned to return to education on VTOS and Youthreach programmes will now be unable to do so.

Those single parents who were endeavouring to escape the net of being trapped on social welfare are now almost certainly condemned to remain on it for the foreseeable future.

Another outcome of this measure will undoubtedly be an increase in abortion as a solution to a crisis pregnancy.

Life Pregnancy Care Service has identified the cost of childcare as one of the factors that contributes to a pregnancy being a crisis. To remove what little support there was towards childcare will ensure more unplanned pregnancies will become crisis pregnancies.

Julia Heffernan,

Life Ireland,

Pregnancy Care Service,

123, Patrick Street,

Cork.