The main theme that was yesterday repeatedly brought up during a pre-budget discussion meeting aimed directly at women was childcare and childcare facilities.

Yesterday’s meeting, held at the St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity with the participation of parliamentary secretary Tonio Fenech, was convened to discuss the budgetary proposals which are aimed directly at the advancement of women.The proposals deal with progress in the fields of economic activity related to employment, the family and others such as education, culture and sports.

Mr Fenech said that concrete measures had been implemented after the last budget, but more was going to be done this year. He said that the theme of this budget was “Strengthening Families”, adding that the woman was an integral part of family life.

He said that the government was trying to encourage women to return to work, and had already done so by offering a one year tax holiday for women who took up jobs after five year absences.

Childcare was in fact brought up by Mr Fenech himself before any prompting by the audience. He said that the realities of today meant that parents, particularly if both worked, needed access to childcare facilities. He said that the issue of childcare was very much related to supply and demand. “We still have the mentality of handing children over to our parents and grandparents because we perhaps do not trust third parties with the care of our offspring. But that will change. Younger generations will probably still be working when they are of grand parenting age, so they will not be able to mind children,” he said.

He said that some Lm200,000 was allocated to upgrade existing childcare facilities in the last budget. “But we need more of them at actual workplaces. The private sector also needs to look into this possibility and there is also the possibility to get European Union funds to do so,” he said.

Tied in with childcare, Mr Fenech said, the issue of single mothers needed to be looked into. “Should we oblige them to work and make use of government childcare facilities, rather than allowing them to continue to siphon the system?” mused Mr Fenech. He also said that the government was looking into two sets of benefits, for those who declared the baby’s father’s name, and those who did not, who might get less benefits.

He also said that the state must not overburden employers, especially to the point of making it more expensive to hire a woman than a man.

Mr Fenech also said that there needed to be more flexibility in the world of work, particularly for women. “We are going to extend maternity leave by one week to a total of 14 weeks, and we also want to incentivise part-timers to declare their income,” he said.

Mr Fenech explained that it was in people’s interest to declare their part time work, as many people who were coming up to pensionable age were finding out that they did not qualify because they did not pay enough contributions on their income. He said that the government had already reduced national insurance contribution, but the aim was now to offer incentives to employers to take on part-timers. To do this, if employees worked more than eight but fewer than 20 hours, only half the NI Contributions must be paid by the employer.

Tongue in cheek, Mr Fenech joked: “At home, I tell my wife that she is the Finance Minister; and most women are, they are the ones that run the finances. However, I do get a feel for the cost of living because I am the one who goes to the grocer in the morning.”

Mr Fenech said that at the last budget, the whole population benefited from the decision to reduce tax across the board. “But now, we need to address a more specific sector of society, that of families with children. At the end of the day, we need to encourage more families to have children. We need them so as to ensure that our pensions are sustainable in the future. To do this, we are going to revise the children’s allowance system.”

Some of the comments from the floor were very positive, with one woman building on Mr Fenech’s suggestion to encourage single mothers to work. She suggested that they be given incentives to continue their studies rather than return to work, especially if they were still very young.

Another person said that while it was all positive to focus on the mother, people should not forget the role of the father in the family and that it was mutually beneficial for ‘him’ and the family to spend time together.

An elderly woman spoke about the need for more disposable income for older people. She said she hoped that when the government undertook the cost of living, it would factor in medicines for the benefit of older people. She also remarked about the huge surge in single mothers. She pointed out that in 2002, the percentage of births to single mothers was only 4.2, however, in 2005 this percentage grew to a staggering 19.4 of total births.