Forums on family 'added little'

The journalist and commentator Mr Colm Rapple has said the recent nationwide evaluation exercise on the family, initiated by the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Ms Coughlan, "added little" to the 1998 Commission on the Family report.

"While in no way devaluing the countrywide consultation process" initiated by the Minister, he felt its report Families and Family Life in Ireland "adds little to the views, concerns, conclusions and recommendations outlined in the commission's report of six years ago," he said.

"This, the 10th anniversary of the International Year of the Family", would have been a good time to revisit its recommendations, he said.

He recalled, as an example, the "Family Impact Statements" measure recommended by the commission to look at the consequences for families of Government policy, but that this was never acted on.

The commission also recommended constitutional recognition for caring work in the home, and that there should be State financial recognition for this work. Another option, where all children under three were concerned, would have meant benefits now of €238 a month, compared to current levels of €131 a month, he said.

For children over three, the commission had recommended annual vouchers, worth €1,850 now, which could be exchanged for pre-school facilities. Neither proposal had been acted on either.

Where family-related issues were concerned "many of the solutions have been outlined. What is needed is a willingness to devote the necessary resources to measures which may not immediately produce an increase in national income but would certainly enhance human welfare and happiness," Mr Rapple said.

Teacher and Irish Times columnist Breda O'Brien said that "ambivalence, it seems, is the lot of mothers." Many women felt torn between children and work, with one of the most strongly and consistently expressed views to the forums conducted by the Department of Social and Family Affairs being that "mothers must have more options or choice around whether they want to take up paid employment."

Lone parents felt even more ambivalent about this "push to force everyone into the workforce", while "many men want a different style of relationship with their children," Ms O'Brien said.