{"id":649814,"date":"2026-10-09T18:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T18:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/649814\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T18:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T18:10:11","slug":"men-benefit-more-from-budget-tax-reforms-national-womens-council-says-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/649814\/","title":{"rendered":"Men benefit more from budget tax reforms, National Women\u2019s Council says \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A \u201chuge\u201d number of parents will see no reduction in their childcare costs after the budget<\/a>, a woman-centred analysis of Tuesday\u2019s announcements finds. <\/p>\n

The National Women\u2019s Council of Ireland<\/a>, in its feminist analysis of Budget 2027 published on Friday, said tax<\/a> reforms announced on Tuesday would benefit far more men than women, while the allocation for domestic violence services was \u201cdisappointing\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn summary: is this a worker\u2019s budget? It\u2019s not for women workers,\u201d the council said. <\/p>\n

It welcomed the extension in eligibility for free contraception<\/a> to women aged up to 36, but criticised the lack of further investment in hormone replacement therapy<\/a> and in publicly funded fertility treatment. <\/p>\n

Deficits in the affordability and availability of childcare<\/a> \u201cremain the single biggest barrier to women\u2019s equal participation in Irish society\u201d, the analysis found. \u201cAnd many early years educators continue to be underpaid and undervalued.\u201d<\/p>\n

The budget contained a commitment that childcare fees would be capped at \u20ac550 a month for children in care for 45 hours a week, up to senior infants level, and in providers under the Department of Children<\/a>\u2019s core funding scheme. <\/p>\n

\u201cChildren in early years education beyond these hours (such as those in childcare from approx 8am-6pm) avail of more than this 45-hour week, and thus, may still pay far above \u20ac550,\u201d the analysis said.<\/p>\n

The bulk of savings will be to parents of babies, toddlers and preschool age. <\/p>\n

\u201cJunior and senior infants typically have their own after-school care, which is significantly less than 45 hours. Access, capacity, regional availability gaps, as well as staff recruitment and retention issues, remain unaddressed by Budget 2027.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Childcare providers face squeeze with fees due to drop further despite funding increaseOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The council reiterated its call for \u201ca detailed plan of action for transitioning to a public system of childcare, including timelines, funding allocations, planning reforms, and governance structures\u201d.<\/p>\n

Social protection increases of \u20ac10 a week \u201care not in keeping with inflation rates … people in Ireland living on lower incomes, who are reliant on social transfers to maintain income adequacy, will see little impact from these reforms\u201d.<\/p>\n

Lone parents, the vast majority of whom are mothers, \u201care also the demographic at the most acute risk of poverty and deprivation in Ireland\u201d. <\/p>\n

Echoing others in calling for welfare rates to be benchmarked against inflation, the council said: \u201cWithout a commitment to benchmarking and indexation, social protection payments will continue to fall behind, leaving women, including disabled women, without an adequate and secure income.\u201d<\/p>\n

Women, particularly those on low incomes, are especially dependent on access to quality public services \u2013 including childcare, transport, healthcare and housing. <\/p>\n

More than half of homeless families are headed by lone parents. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll housing policy and investment should be gender-sensitive, to ensure that they are tackling gender and social inequalities rather than exacerbating or maintaining them,\u201d the council said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A \u201chuge\u201d number of parents will see no reduction in their childcare costs after the budget, a woman-centred…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5168,9687,195462,31937,84301,11596,56230,61,60,127140,43,5066],"class_list":["post-649814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-budget","tag-childcare","tag-department-of-children-disability-and-equality","tag-feminism","tag-healthcare-investment","tag-housing-demand","tag-hrt","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-national-womens-council-of-ireland","tag-news","tag-tax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}