"You see, doctor," said the tax inspector, "we look on you as a wholly owned subsidiary of your husband." That was two decades ago. Between income tax and levies, well over 50 per cent of the payment I received for clinics went to the State. Subtract medical insurance, transport and childcare payment from what was left and, if I laddered my tights, I was in a deficit situation.

I could not be taxed as an individual, my income was "add on" to my husband's. I could never pay tax at the standard rate; from the first pound, tax was at the higher rate.

I was pleased when Charlie McCreevy announced "individualisation". But a dearth of women in senior positions in the Department of Finance can be the only explanation for the lack of philosophy and blindness in presentation regarding the taxation of women in his Budget.

Women are still seen as adult dependants or wholly owned subsidiaries.

Women who work outside the home are often in poorly paid jobs, many in the service industries. Others are in our burgeoning industrial complexes, still - after nearly 30 years of equal pay legislation - receiving 74 per cent of the average male industrial rate.

All these women, and more, are desperately needed to promote our growing economy. The Budget gave these women an increase of £10 a week before paying tax. Women with children got an increase of £8 per month in child benefit for first and second, and £10 for subsequent children. Individualisation did nothing for any of them.

Little was said about these workers initially. More emphasis was put on the difference in treatment of women working in the home and those outside.

In an essay, Dodos and Dinosaurs, published in A Time to Build: Essays for Tomorrow's Church, Maureen Ryan, a Church of Ireland priest, quotes a young offender who said to her, "Nobody gives a f... about me who isn't paid to."

At the other end of the scale, a young Irish graduate, home from abroad for Christmas, said he felt Dubliners should stencil their salaries on their foreheads because that was all people here cared about any more. Important voluntary organisations despair of finding people to help in their vital work.

The addendum to the Budget giving £3,000 extra tax relief to the main wage earner, usually the man, is surely little compensation for continuing through life as an "adult dependant", when it is perfectly obvious one is not. Take carers of the elderly and people with serious disabilities. If a woman is at home to mind children, at least she sees them grow to independence.

Other carers can see a life ahead which will only get worse. There was no "individualisation" for this group.

Still there is the means test which, in fact, uses another adult's salary to penalise the carer. The more he earns, for it is usually he, the less the carer, and it is usually she, gets.

In fact, thanks to the means test, most carers get nothing. Frequently women give up well paid jobs to care for elderly parents only to find, a decade later, that they themselves are virtually in need of care.

Respite care has been given more money, but who will work in this area with the low rate of pay, high levels of tax, stress and unsocial hours?

Now, back to the group of high-earning women who should be whooping with joy, no longer looked on as "wholly owned subsidiaries". There was little to do with gender equality in Mr McCreevy's words, "The tax band for two-income married couples will be set at double the individual band, that is £34,000 per annum, with transferability of the individual bands between spouses up to a maximum band of £28,000 per annum for either spouse."

Why not just say, "Men and women will be taxed as individuals" and leave out the two-income bit?

The change in taxation is, of course, welcomed by women on higher incomes and badly needed to keep them in the workforce, too. The Irish Medical Times, in an editorial, said it might help to bring married women doctors (now over 50 per cent of medical graduates), back into the workforce.

A recent editorial in Medicine Weekly pointed out that, according to research presented at the annual scientific meeting of the Irish College of General Practitioners, 40 per cent of patients would refuse to have a cervical smear taken by a male doctor and 69 per cent would prefer a female health professional to do the examination.

To have gender choice for patients, one must make it attractive for women to work. Much of the well deserved pay increases of nurses will be repaid to the State in tax.

Lastly, childcare. There still appears to be no Government philosophy in this area. The whole thrust in the Budget was in capital allowances for childcare facilities.

Of course these are needed and welcome, but no notice appears to have been taken of the worthwhile and carefully thought out recommendations of Childcare 2000.

All people with children would have been helped by the universal payment that it suggested. The National Women's Council of Ireland rightly said that it was "alarmed at repeated Government statements that the tax increases in the Budget were put in place to target childcare costs for parents."

This, of course, is not true. With children reared, I will benefit as much as women with three small children.

There was little for those working in childcare. Personally, I would be glad to see tax relief available for those who employ childminders or avail of creche facilities. This could only improve the payment and pension rights of workers and raise the status of this group, whose importance is unrecognised.

For women, lack of philosophy on childcare was probably the rock on which the Budget perished. Women cannot achieve equality in the workforce without good, affordable local childcare. Little children should not become commuters.

With our smaller families, our children must be cherished even more. Parents know this but the Government, sadly, sees little point in putting thought and money into the health and welfare of the new millennium's citizens.

Senator Mary Henry is an Independent senator representing Dublin University, a medical practitioner, a wife and mother of three adults.