Comments on: We've stopped having babies

By: David Buttigieg

David Buttigieg — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 19:23:30 +0000

Yes Sybil, sure she does!

By: Sybil

Sybil — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 01:07:10 +0000

I think she makes a very valid point. Read the rest of the comments on the link you kindly posted.

By: David Buttigieg

David Buttigieg — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 11:06:31 +0000

Did you see this comment in The Times?

”
Marisa Mifsud (1 hour, 16 minutes ago)
I think women who state “father unknown” on the birth certificate should be forced to give details of their sexual partners so that paternity tests can be carried out. If they fail to do so, they should have their benifits cut/reduced. Too much money is being handed out to these fraudulant people. I assume that nobody sleeps with someone without knowing about it or who the other person is (with exeption to rape cases obviously).
”
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20081219/local/marriage-act-anomaly-settled

I give up!

By: amrio

amrio — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 13:27:27 +0000

@paceville

I agree think you need some help.

http://hcd2.bupa.co.uk/fact_sheets/html/Vasectomy.html

By: David Buttigieg

David Buttigieg — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 10:48:13 +0000

@Paceville,

Whilst I agree with Daphne 100% since last year everybody is eligible to receive children’s allowance. With 7 kids that leaves you with €1750!

You did remember to register them with social services didn’t you?

And as Daphne said – you send 7 kids to private school on the salary you claim? U ejja gbin, can you tell me the name of the school as I would like to send my kids there too!

By: Sybil

Sybil — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 00:44:43 +0000

@Paceville:

Congrats. You seem to be doing quite well as it is anyway and I hope that you get some help from the government for some home improvement to make life easier. God bless your big family.

By: paceville

paceville — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:45:03 +0000

@ Daphne
“Excuse me for saying this, but you have a ruddy nerve to expect those who responsibly have no more than two or three children to subsidise your seven by means of their taxes.”

No, I don’t expect another family with two children to subsidise my own family of seven children, but neither do I expect my family with seven children to be subsidising a family with two children just because we earn (or rather, declare to be earning) a few hundred more euros a year. This is unjust, however much you attempt to twist what I said.

On what basis does the government determine that the value of each child in a two-child family is worth much more than each child in a seven-child family? Not that this did stop us anyway.

By: paceville

paceville — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:28:09 +0000

This certainly hasn’t stopped my family, we’ve just had our seventh baby, against all odds can I say;
we haven’t got a single cent of children’s allowance until this year, just because we have skipped the limit of income by a few hundred euro. This year’s budget’s concession for large families was only cosmetic, we still only get a couple of hundred euro, less than a one-child family gets, despite that they only earn a few hundred euros less. All our children go to private schools, and that absorbs most of the pay we have left. Only a very small amount is tax deductible from this, and yet we are sponsoring the state education of one-child families with incomes greater than ours. At three months’ paid pregnancy leave this is by far the worst in Europe, and anti-family. We have to buy a 7-seater car by force, we are given no allowance for this when calculating VRT, VAT , fuel, motor tax etc. We live in a two bedroomed house; we are not given any living allowance or any aid in accommodation, despite that many so called “single parents ” are given free accomodation, sponsored by our taxes. Gonzi claims this is a pro-family government, yet the facts prove otherwise, this is a government that positively discriminates against large families.

[Daphne – First you go to the extreme of having seven children, which was entirely your choice, and then you complain because you don’t get financial assistance. Excuse me for saying this, but you have a ruddy nerve to expect those who responsibly have no more than two or three children to subsidise your seven by means of their taxes. Not only that, but you also expect to send all seven to private schools. I don’t know whether you’re telling the truth, or whether you mean church schools rather than independent schools, but sending seven children to independent schools would eat up that entire salary that misses the children’s allowance threshold by a few hundred euros, even before you’ve paid tax and national insurance, so what are you eating? More to the point, what in heaven’s name were you thinking of?]

By: Bernard

Bernard — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:27:45 +0000

@ E Grima

Yes, a stable population is fine but that’s not where we’re heading. A rapidly contracting population will mean a rapidly contracting total GDP and a loss of whatever limited economies of scale we benefit from at the moment.

It’s not as if the economic cake is of a fixed size and when the number of guests at the table is reduced we’ll all have a bigger piece.

By: E Grima

E Grima — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 11:38:09 +0000

I don’t think that anyone should be viewing these statistics as anything but positive. Malta cannot sustain a huge birth rate, the likes of which was the norm the century just passed. Not without the safety valve of emigration, which has been closing as an escape for overpopulation for decades.

Maybe the Maltese are getting it right.