Madam, – While I fully agree with Sarah Carey’s sentiments regarding the lack of recognition that society and (supposed) women’s groups such as the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) give to stay-at-home mothers (Opinion, April 8th), I think she is misguided in her support for Fianna Fáil on this issue.
That party, under Bertie Ahern and Charlie McCreevy, was responsible for the greatest insult to stay-at-home women when it ended the automatic entitlement of a single-income couple to group their tax allowances if one of them were staying at home to raise their children.
This policy was designed to penalise single-income couples by making them pay more tax than a dual-income couple with the same income.
The message, therefore, was loud and clear from Fianna Fáil: stay-at-home mothers are of less value to our country than income-earning mothers.
It’s a pity stay-at-home mothers didn’t make a bolder stand on this when it was introduced, but maybe they were under the impression that women’s groups like the NWCI were there to promote all women’s interests and not just their own narrow ideology.
– Yours, etc,