Ms Eilís Ní Chaithnía:

On gender and equality budgeting, it is important to acknowledge that, from their responses to parliamentary questions, some Departments are starting to work on this issue. As we understand it, the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government has appointed an official to work with the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, on the public sector duty. In starting to analyse its activities from an equality and human rights point of view it will start to bring up particular activities which will need greater resources. It is a good step, as is the step taken by the Department of Justice and Equality in considering with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform the best ways forward to develop skills across the Civil Service. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has been looking at the issue of gender proofing and done a pretty good job for quite some time through its overseas aid programme. It is really strict on meeting requirements in ensuring gender equality is a key part of a programme being carried out. We do not want to underplay the fact that there is expertise in Departments to carry out this work. There is a step on which to build. We encourage the committee to start to scope out what has been done and build on it.

As we mentioned in our submission, the IHREC has just provided us with a sum of money. We will start to work with civic society to build its knowledge of it. We also intend to start to work with experts across Europe. I am a member of the executive committee of the European Women's Lobby. We have built great relationships with experts on gender budgeting. We will bring them together both to increase the National Women's Councils of Ireland's knowledge and expertise and also to bring that knowledge and expertise to committee members. We will be organising seminars and so on.

Our hope is we will identify a Department which will commit to working with us to create a demonstration project and put in place some of the recommendations with which we will come up. We will be conducting a research piece. If there are particular Departments the committee thinks would be a good place to start, we will be happy to hear about them. We will also be speaking to the committee once we have conducted research to identify that Department. We need a Department to commit to working with us to see how the project can be rolled out effectively.

There are several issues with regard to the gender pay gap in the hospitality, retail and cleaning sectors, all of which are problematic because often the contracts are for precarious work0. Low-paid and part-time work is problematic. Even in the public sector broadly, it is women who have been affected most by the cuts in pay because of the fact that most of the middle income earners are women.