Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I do not see any members indicating online. I have a range of questions following on from that exchange. I thank the witnesses for coming in. As Deputy Clarke said gender budgeting and data gathering sound quite dry and it is a technical exercise but of course the citizens' assembly was very clear as to its importance and as to the need to ensure proper and effective systems for equality budgeting in order to be able to drive the implementation of the other recommendations. For example that lack of data on pensions for carers can have a real impact on gendered impacts on carers and so on. The importance is clear. I will go back to some of the recommendations from the citizens' assembly and try to tease those out with the witnesses. Ms O'Loughlin and Mr. Hearne may respond to recommendation 42 on a statutory body for gender equality under the responsibility of a Cabinet Minister charged with cross-Government co-ordination of gender equality issues. It is very welcome to hear about the high-level steps and measures that have been adopted within the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and across all the Departments, and working with the CSO and stakeholders. However, would a statutory body for gender equality and a specific Cabinet Minister responsible for this have an impact? Would that improve the capacity to engage in equality budgeting? I know the political decision is not something witnesses want to comment on but just to tease it out. The citizens' assembly made that recommendation because it was concerned about clear lines of accountability and responsibility for delivering gender equality across Government. Its recommendations on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence also recommended a specific Minister. We have seen the Minister for Justice really taking on that role, which is very welcome. There is now also a statutory body to be set up on that. However, the citizens' assembly also recommended this for gender equality more generally. How would that impact on the work currently being done on equality budgeting? That is one question relating to recommendation 42.

Recommendation 43 is the critical one on data gathering. There is a reference to care. The citizens' assembly identified areas where it saw data as deficient, limited or out of date, or even contested.

Examples would be: domestic, sexual and gender-based violence; care; and gender pay gap measurement. From the presentations from the Department and the CSO, clearly a good deal of work is underway on the area of violence. The safety of the person survey is very welcome. The gender pay gap legislation obviously has an impact on that data. However, we are conscious that there are still deficiencies when it comes to care. Coming back to Mr. Culhane's point, it may not be that the data is missing but that it has not been linked up, for example, those engaged in providing care and their pension entitlements, which is something the citizen's assembly honed in on. How can we ensure improvements in gathering data on care in particular?

Regarding recommendation 44, the assembly recommended legislating for equality budgeting. How could legislating help to ensure an effective system of equality budgeting? I am looking at the OECD recommendation that if the practice was embedded in legislation, it would ensure that gender budgeting, in particular its objectives and insistence that accountability would be democratically proofed and insulated from economic and political changes. The interdepartmental group was mentioned as a very welcome development in ensuring co-ordination but would legislation help in this regard? There are quite a lot of issues there.