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A HIERARCHY OF parenting has been created by changes to tax credits for single parents according to single-parent support group One Family.
Many single parents who previously received the One Parent Family Tax Credit have seen it disappear from their tax credit certificates for 2014.
In last year’s budget, the credit was replaced by the Single Person Child Carer Tax Credit which is now only available to one parent as opposed to two previously. The value of the credit will not change, but the decision to remove it from one parent was attacked by One Family at the time for taking money away from the pot from which parents provide for their children.
Revenue refer to the primary claimant and the secondary claimant, the first being the parent with whom the child lives for either the full year or most of the year and the second being the parent with whom the child spends time and resides for at least 100 days in the year.
The measure however has been criticised for not taking account of separated parents who share custody of children and have an equal role in parenting.
One such parent is engineer Scott McEvoy who has had shared custody of his three children with their mother the the past nine years. He says they have a equal and shared parenting routine and feels that removing the tax credit from him feels like tax office does not respect the decision of the courts system.
“I was reading through my tax credit cert when I got it there and I noticed single parent tax credit was gone. I kind of thought that I remembered reading something about this,” he explains.
So I rang up and I was told that because you’re a man you don’t get it. I kind of thought to myself ‘you can’t say that’ and inquired a bit more but they basically said the same again that you’re a man and you don’t get it. They were quite rude but I’m sure they’re getting questions like this all the time so I just left it.
In cases of shared custody the Revenue Commissioners decide on the parent who receives the credit based on who receives the child benefit payment, this is the mother in the vast majority of cases.
If the parent who is receiving the credit isn’t in employment or can’t avail of it for any particular reason it can be transferred to the other but this is a complicated process.
Stuart Duffin, director of policy at One Family, has described this approach as “using a sledgehammer to crack a nut”.
“They’re using the benefit payment as a proxy to decide on who the principal carer is. We don’t like that because again it creates a hierarchy in parenting,” he says.
One Family have called for a system be introduced where an agreement could be reached to provide and equal credit to both parents in these cases. This something echoed by McEvoy who says that in cases such as his, court documents can clearly show that parenting is being shared.
“It should be done at a case by case basis, all the documentation is there, all it takes is for one department to speak to another.”
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The Gardai refusals I would think have as much to do with the resources they are allocated (ie: available armed Gardai on a given day due to lack of overtime payments) as anything else. But that will never be admitted because it would make the Minister and Government look bad.
Why not do away with the need for armed Gardai. Instead of bringing the prisoners to the hospital, have a doctor and nurse visit each prison once a week. Or have them stationed there permanently, it would be cheaper that transporting them.
The Garda do a good job with limited resources , only for the brave women and men in the Garda the streets would be in anarchy.
We need more of them though
Suzi. That again comes down to finances. As we. Have heard fro the AGSI conference last week the Government are trying to bring in what amounts to “Yellow Pack” Gardai by giving more powers to the Garda Reserve. Similarly they are doing the same in the Prison Service with PASO Grade Officers who are not trained to deal with Prisoners directly.
Mick , I agree , I pity those prison officers and security guards , it’s their lives that are being put at risk .
Hate to agree with Niall Collins – he obviously has a political agenda of knocking present government- but it is quite obvious that this issue comes down to resources/man power. There aren’t enough Gardai so how could there be enough armed Gardai? The second issue here is that these decisions are taken by a Garda desk jockey – probably an Inspector/Superintendent – and a Prison Service desk jockey – neither with a single thought whatsoever for the safety of the Prison Officers. These agencies have an obligation to their employees under the Safety Health & Welfare at work act but surprise surprise – no one to take responsibility for making the decisions and no will to do anything about it. Authorities in both agencies will try to throw a lowly operative under the bus to deflect the blame from the decision makers because we all know that there is no accountability for anyone other than the bottom rungs. Sh*t rolls downhill.
The gardai are too busy collecting tax… I mean, protecting us from bad drivers.
This is a question about the availability of ARMED Gardaí, plain clothes Gardaí.
Traffic Corps etc who deal with Roads/ give out fines etc are not armed or in plain clothes.
And who makes the decision to have so few armed gardai when obviously more are needed? The politicians who are more interested in making the gardai a force for tax collection than a force for protection.
I know perfectly well traffic corps are not the ones who handle this type of requests.
That’s a big army with guns doing nothing but carrying cash around for banks.
They don’t even do that anymore.
Yeah, too busy with deploying overseas to the Middle East and Africa to be worrying about CIT
They do prisoner escorts when requested and subject to certain conditions
Why can’t the prison service have its own in house armed VIP prisoner unit, no messing around ringing/emailing/requesting army/gardai, we bloody love making stuff complicated in this country, send 50 good prison officers to templemore for 2 weeks or whatever and let them do refresher training with eru every 6/12 months as required, problem solved,
Perhaps it is time to arm the prison warders…..It is after all their lives at risk to protect the general public.This almost cap in hand approach to security is shameful. If they request security it would be based on the risk they assess and that should trump any objection /refusal by the Gardai.
This has been high lighed by FF , wht ? are responsible for the state of the public finances or not, I’m confused. …..?
You definitely sound confused alright
Gardai didn’t refuse to take the jobs. Their bosses refused. Big question need asking. When they don’t refuse gardai being used as security for iw but refuse to escort dangerous criminals. They also sent out how many to arrest a TD a 14 year old and a 16 year old. Do not blame gardai they only go where told to go.
Sounds like a “pass the book” job by the prison service to me…..
Maybe you need to manage the requests better. Maybe send 2 prisoners each time with armed guards and the number of refusals virtually eliminates its self
How about the prison service has a specially trained armed unit for transporting prisoners
Connor. That would work if (and it’s a big IF) both escorts were going to the same place at the same time. Unfortunately that is an extremely rare occurance.
Escorting prisoners is not a military task, the task is purely a tasķ of the dept of justce and is primarily a PO job, this is sheer laziness on the part of prison management and the PO association and it should be tackled under H&S. The army has its own tasks to perform and has only recently got rid of cash escorts. POs should have all the legislation and equip to perform this task safely even if it means a prisoner who is assessed as dangerous has his rights infringed( let the whingers whinge ). It would be fairly easy to enable legislation to enable POs to carry firearms for self protection (no power of arrest needed) when deemed necessarry however I doubt it will happen because of vested interests and restrictive work practices. Leave the military authorities out of it unless there is some kind of national emergency.
What does the army do in this country. Surely tasks such as prisoner transport would be ideal ??
A few guys and girls I know in the FCA would be only to happy to give them an armed escort.
In this day and age all Gardai should be armed and provisions for certain security workers to be armed as well. The insistence that only Gardai should be allowed carry out these functions and then not give them sufficient resources to actually do the job is a recipe for disaster.
Armed guards for handcuffed prisoners… three prison officers v one prisoner I would have thought it was an easy job. Armed guards would not have opened fire on an unarmed runner. Are they saying if they had two more prison officers instead he wouldn’t have got away.
HRH. The Armed Gardai are there in case the prisoner has armed accomplice’s waiting to assist in an escape.
And in the Brockwell case would he have used a knife in the presence of an Armed Garda?
What knife?
With knife guards wouldn’t shoot him. To P.C media would hang them out to dry, look at the fuss they made about shooting an armed man in Abbeylara. And by the way they were right to do that.
Prison transfer guards should be armed. It is a brainer.
I once had an unarmed escort, mad craic! She didn’t have an legs either.
Gar
That will be illegal in June… Why armed escorts lol.
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