Fury at Budget bid to cut Child Benefit to stay-at-home parents

A FURIOUS row has broken out over a call to force stay-at-home parents to give up their badly needed children’s allowance to fund creches.

The National Recruitment Federation made the proposal in a pre-Budget submission. It wants to cut Child Benefit and use it to provide childcare facilities where working parents can pick up their youngsters after work.

It also said the €140-a-month payment for each child should be means tested in order to pay for the extension of the State-funded childcare facilities.

But the Green Party was appalled by the suggestion yesterday and leader Eamon Ryan TD hit out at the Government’s record on childcare: ‘In the same way as they stole from people’s pension pots, Fine Gael are considering cutting people’s Child Benefit for their own policy objectives. They must maintain Child Benefit payments and allow parents themselves decide what is best for their children, not reduce their money and leave them with a State choice. That can never be right.’

Mr Ryan added: ‘At every turn Fine Gael seems to be about prioritising the economy at the expense of families in particular. But the economy is not society. What society should be about is raising the new generation in the best way possible and we feel that families are the best judge of that – not the State.’

The NRF said the average monthly cost of childcare is now €622 for every Irish household with children, while Ireland is the country with the second highest childcare costs in the OECD.

Last night, a spokesman for Minister for Children Katherine Zappone said: ‘Minister Zappone has always been clear that correcting decades of neglect by successive governments on childcare would take time to correct ... She is involved in pre-Budget negotiations to ensure childcare will be a priority in October’s Budget as it was in 2017 and 2018.’