Referendum on Gender Equality (THREADBANS IN OP)

Furze99

I hear & read that the government is also coming up with new legislation concerning surrogacy. Considering that this relates to family matters as well, they are sure going to muddy the waters. Surrogacy in itself has many angles and is controversial, particularly where remuneration/ commerce is involved.

What's the thinking here? Throw as many of these matters together and hope they all pass into public acceptance together rather than fall singly? Or just hope the lot fall and leave it for some other day?

Annasopra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121487292#Comment_121487292

I think the thinking is these are issues affecting people's lives and need to be dealt with in a way that laws need updating and that's it.

Gussoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121485222#Comment_121485222

This isn't the whole thing though. The selected screenshot is for Family but infact it has omitted that "dependents" can also join.

This is contained in the policy document "Family Reunification Policy Document.pdf".

Link to PDF:

https://www.irishimmigration.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Policy-document-on-Non-EEA-family-reunification.pdf

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121487292#Comment_121487292

Why raise that in this thread? It's got nothing whatsoever to do with the constitution. We don't get to vote on whether legislation passes or not, the Dail does.

Talk about a red herring.

We'll see marrying horses before this thread is out.

Hotblack Desiato

so you don't think families with a single parent are families?

Flaneur OBrien

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121488145#Comment_121488145

Link please.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121487440#Comment_121487440

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121487487#Comment_121487487

Well you would say that wouldn't you! Issues surrounding surrogacy are very relevant to family and there are some thorny aspects surrounding monetary value being put on human life. The issues in the referendum relate to family. They will be very much part of the same debates if both are in train at same time.

Water John

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121487487#Comment_121487487

A dead cat more like.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121488219#Comment_121488219

A dead cat? Should we extend all rights to 'families' that buy children? Oh ho!!! Depends much on the proposed surrogacy legislation and how far it goes, but that is one controversial area.

Water John

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121488237#Comment_121488237

In what way is it tied to the Referendum on Gender Equality?

Flaneur OBrien

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121485119#Comment_121485119

You're very wrong.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121488253#Comment_121488253

In the same way that if the government brought in legislation to charge all properties a broadcasting charge of €300 per annum, collected by Revenue. Then if there was an election in coming months, you better believe they'd be related matters....

K-9

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121485340#Comment_121485340

It is a significant tax credit only available to stay at home parents, similar to how working parents receives a PAYE tax credit, which is only available to those who work.

As a tax and social policy, tax individualisation makes sense. A married couple get the same tax credit, 1 working or 2. Letting families with 2 incomes earn more at the lower tax rate addresses that imbalance.

It means a family can have 2 incomes and earn a bit more at the lower rate of tax, and is recognition that society has changed from 30 or 40 years ago.

As a social policy, it means 2 income families get to keep more of their wages to pay for work related costs, like the exorbitant child care costs in this country.

K-9

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121488237#Comment_121488237

Lots of foreign adoptions do actually involve "buying" the child, its an expensive process. They are treated exactly the same as other married families when they come back.

techdiver

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121488295#Comment_121488295

The tax credit is only 1 aspect. The transfer of standard rate cutoff is another that was effected by the change. Now single income households can only transfer a fraction of the cutoff rate.

Also whilst I agree time had changed what is wrong with a parent who wants to stay home to mind their kids? It's now changed from mothers being forced to quit work when married to being punished for staying at home. By any measurements single income households are relatively worse off than they were in 2000. That's a stick as opposed to a carrot approach to increased involvement by women in the workforce. Also, it wasn't done for equality reasons, it was done because the government wanted labour shortages plugged.

Annasopra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121488110#Comment_121488110

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121485119#Comment_121485119

This proves the whole point on why this referendum is needed.You are undermining single parent by pretty much saying they don't exist.

You claimed that 95% of family units are man, woman and child but then presented a statistic that 96% of people living with a spouse are opposite sex partners. The reality is there are many families existing outside of the marital family.

Annasopra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121488253#Comment_121488253

It's not. It's connected by association because its to do with the definition of family.

Flaneur OBrien

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121489088#Comment_121489088

What?

You said, "The fact still remains 95% of family units are man, woman and child."

How do you stand by that when 25.4% of families are headed by a single parent?

Again:

Shame on me indeed lol. Take a look in a mirror.

Annasopra

Deleted

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121488408#Comment_121488408

Hoisted by their own petard

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121488340#Comment_121488340

Nobody is saying there is anything wrong with it and nobody is being punished.

Can you at least acknowledge that two-income families have far higher costs especially childcare or are you going to keep ignoring posters who mention this?

And that giving the working spouse (let's face it, the man) double allowances and bands meant the partner returning to work (let's face it, the woman) got nothing and paid top rate tax on every penny? Imagine that in a relationship where finanacial coercive control is already happening, even getting a job won't help you much because you'll get to keep less than half of all that you earn...

techdiver

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121490183#Comment_121490183

You know they could still have implemented individualisation whilst also maintaining full transfer of all credits? This is not a man v woman thing. Tax individualisation itself is fine as a default position, but why couldn't they have maintained the exact same taxation position for single income households subsequently? People are blinded by the spin that this was done in the name of equality when there was no such altruistic motive involved. They wanted a labour shortage gap plugged so they overnight made it more penal for a household to maintain a single income. These are facts despite whether you like to admit it or not. Also, by the way at the time of these changes my mother was the main income earner so I'm not coming at this from some sort of anti-woman point of view (which I'm getting the implication from your tone). Now from my point of view we have a child with special needs so it is currently impossible for both of us to work full time. So there is more nuance to my argument than just "evil man wants woman tied to kitchen sink".

Regarding the childcare element, of course this is a fact. I never said it wasn't. You do realise they could have introduced better treatment for dual income couples without at the same time, disadvantaging single income households. It's not a binary choice. It's possible to say yes, dual income households have higher childcare costs (if they actually have children, as not all married couples do) and acknowledge and help with that whilst also allowing families who genuinely want to maintain a single income household to do so without penalty (overnight single income households net income was reduced when compared with the rest of society), because like it or not that's what those changes were, plain and simple.

This is not to mention the fact that these measures were introduced without any thought toward the additional stress on child care provision which is still a **** show to this day.

Just to clear any misunderstanding here on my views on all of this. Yes, there should be no barrier to any person entering the labour market if they so choose to regardless of gender. Also, I'm fully in support of any measure that enshrines equality across the genders. This doesn't mean that you can't analyse and criticise previous measures. In essence, what I'm saying is they overshot the landing on the changes that were made. They could have had tax individualisation whilst also maintaining the ability for all credits and bands to be fully transferrable as before (the actual system is exactly the same as what we have now it's just has a limit on band transfer). Instead what they did is force people who were previously happy to stay at home to enter the labour market through necessity due to lose of net income.

Hotblack Desiato

You know they could still have implemented individualisation whilst also maintaining full transfer of all credits?

Full transfer was what was there before. So that's just arguing for no change at all.

penal

Ah c'mon. There were very substantial tax cuts made in those years. They decided to target these cuts more towards double-income families than single. That's a valid policy response to increase labour participation. No government has seen fit to reverse this since and no party that has ever reached the Dail, afaik, has ever sought to reverse this either. There were a few fringe nutter fundamentalist christian candidates who did, but few of them got much more than 100 votes.

The old days aren't coming back.

Government were going to take flak no matter what they did, there was (rightly) clamour that women returning to the workforce were forced to pay a ridiculous amount of tax, but if they'd say introduced tax relief on childcare instead the SAHP lobby would have been giving them hell over it. In the end everyone got something (even those with no kids) because of the very substantial income tax cuts implemented for everyone during those years.

My wife was a SAHP parent for over ten years, mainly because with childcare costs it would have been barely worth her while working. In all honesty while it would have been nice, for us, to get double allowances and bands for that period, it wouldn't be a sensible government policy to give such a substantial benefit to families who don't have huge expenses like childcare.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121492174#Comment_121492174

"My wife was a SAHP parent for over ten years, mainly because with childcare costs it would have been barely worth her while working. In all honesty while it would have been nice, for us, to get double allowances and bands for that period, it wouldn't be a sensible government policy to give such a substantial benefit to families who don't have huge expenses like childcare."

And if you were to put a monetary value (which I'm sure you wouldn't) on your wonderful wife's contribution both to your children, society & your family budget - would that not be at least as great as the other parent going out to work? If not more.

This is part of a problem in that stay at home parents are not valued by the state to the same monetary extent.

K-9

The real problem was, McCreevy/PD, free market, type politics. The idea was give people more in their wages, and let them decide how to spend it, rather than do something long term like funding childcare like other countries do. We are only starting to fund it properly, 20 years later.