Ms Orla O'Connor:

Yes, Thérèse Murphy, the former chair of National Women’s Council of Ireland. The institute is compiling a lot of comparative data and baseline data on gender in order to get consistent indicators. There are huge advances in that area and it should not hold us back.

You mentioned funding, Chairman, and the carrot and the stick. I agree with what Deputy Byrne said. It is important that the sticks do not all relate just to the hard economic stuff and that the social dimension is all about the carrot because that is part of the problem. Our experience of the open method of co-ordination and the series of action plans on poverty and employment is that they were all about the carrot and did not push countries other than to say they were falling down in certain respects but it did not make them do anything. There must be obligations in terms of the social dimension.

Senator Reilly’s first question was where Ireland is in the EU. I will come back to her. I think we are about 19th but I want to check because I am not fully sure. I am happy to e-mail the information to the committee. In terms of indicators that could be used around women, the participation of women with children is an important issue so that we do not get lost in overall employment rates. A really good series of indicators were developed in Ireland when we put together our national women’s strategy. Indicators included the availability of flexible working options. That is an issue being examined in other European countries as well. The Barcelona targets were used to assess child care places. The number of after-school child care places available was also assessed. An indicator used quite a lot by the OECD is the percentage of child care costs as a proportion of net income. That is important in terms of Ireland because our child care costs are such a high proportion of net income. A number of indicators can be used.

Deputy Durkan referred to how we compare in Europe in terms of women’s participation. The labour force participation of women is 53.3% and the average is approximately 63% at EU level. We are about 10% less. What is indicative in terms of Ireland is the drop when children are present, in particular when there are more than two children. The same drop is not experienced in many other European countries. Ireland stands out in that regard.

In terms of part-time workers across the EU there is a high level of women working part time so we are not particularly different in that regard, other than the Nordic countries which have a much higher proportion of women in full-time work. Choice is an important issue. From our work with women and from existing evidence a number of things limit choice for women. The issue is whether the choice for women in Ireland is extremely limited; if they choose to work part time or if they choose to leave work because they want to leave work when they have two children. One factor which constantly emerged both from statistics from research and also anecdotally is the cost of child care in Ireland and the impact of that. If one has more than two children the cost is prohibitive.

There is limited paid parental leave in Ireland. If one compares Ireland to Scandinavia and the Nordic countries, one has generous proportions of leave in the early years of children’s lives and then women go back to full-time work. As there is no substantial paid leave in Ireland women drop out and will not necessarily go back into the workforce. In the Scandinavian countries the connection to the labour force exists all the time. That is a huge difference in Ireland and really inhibits choice. It does not support women to return to work. We know that the longer women stay out of work it becomes much harder to go back and to keep one’s status in the labour market. Many women who have two children in a crèche say the only reason they stay in work is so as not to lose their place. All their wages go on child care.

The youth guarantee is something the National Women’s Council has been raising with the Department of Social Protection. We think there does need to be a gender dimension to the youth guarantee and how it plays out. The National Women’s Council of Ireland has a youth initiative called the Y Factor and a lot of the young women in that have been talking about their experiences of unemployment. We are doing research on the different experiences of young women in comparison to young men in terms of unemployment. The European Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men has also said there needs to be a gender dimension to the youth guarantee. I think I have answered all questions.