Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The point I wish to make is this. During the last Government, this committee did a piece of work on gender equality, of which the witnesses are aware. There are well-being indicators in the programme for Government. Both these initiatives are worthwhile. The witnesses have all done work on this and I know they are aware of these aspects. The Departments have done excellent work on this, in fairness. My impression of the budget cycle, though, and it might be unfair, is that gender equality budgeting and well-being indicators are still somewhat a satellite element in the context of the work being done. They are in the process of being implemented. When we talk about budgets, the SWITCH system is still central to the decisions we are making. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because households are incredibly important, as is understanding and calibrating in that context. We may, however, be missing a piece in the discussion by following this one system and not having fully implemented the other two systems.