Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank Dr. Seán Healy, Ms Eilís Ní Chaithnía and Ms Orla O'Connor. I am sorry that I missed the initial presentations, but I had to be in the Dáil Chamber to ask a parliamentary question. I thank both organisations for all of their fantastic work which really helps to inform our understanding of these important issues every year. I agree overwhelmingly with what the delegates have said. I welcome their highlighting of the importance of access to analytical models and the proper staffing of the budgetary office. I also welcome emphasis placed by them on spending on infrastructure and social services, as well as dealing with the pay and pensions gap for women. On the latter, I have a question for the representatives of the National Women's Council of Ireland. They mentioned the fact that precarious work - I would add outsourcing - was a major contributory factor to the pay gap for women. What would the council propose to address that issue? I have a few thoughts on it and the delegates may have mentioned some of them in their earlier presentation. They include banning zero hour contracts, substantially increasing the minimum wage to make it a living wage and so forth. What does the council believe we should do in that general area?

On the pensions gap, we have been discussing recently how a certain cohort of women who have worked for a long period and made total social insurance contributions which should make them eligible to receive the full contributory pension are not receiving it because they took a break at some point from paid work. The payment is worked out based on yearly averages, as a result of which a large cohort of women are losing out. I do not know if the delegates mentioned this earlier, but it suggests to me the pensions gap will actually widen in the coming years. There is a large cohort of women who are reaching pension age who will be disadvantaged. I agree with the council's recommendation of a universal pension as against providing private pension tax breaks.

On the new child care scheme, is the council concerned that it will not start until September 2017? The additional money allocated to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs is very small, which suggests there is not a lot of funding available for the scheme, despite all the fanfare. It appears that it will not make a significant difference because the amount of money necessary for it to be really effective has not been provided.

I ask the representatives of the council to respond to these questions. I will then put some specific questions to Social Justice Ireland.