Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I want to go back to something that Senator Warfield said. I was not commending the Taoiseach; I was suggesting that future Taoisigh could be forced to introduce gender equality measures through some form of legislation, as has been mentioned. The Taoiseach did do us a service in the Seanad by having nine of the 11 nominees as women but it should not be up to him. He took on board within the 11 the nomination of the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, of Senator Eileen Flynn. This was also a good thing. We could have it whereby the Taoiseach is required to do this.

On the other points raised with regard to the Seanad, our party had an internal selection process that gave preference to women because of the number of men in the Dáil and to balance it out. We cannot look at the Seanad in isolation from the rest of the political system. It is an opportunity to have a greater voice for women than there would be in the Dáil on the basis that not many women are getting elected.

A point that has not been touched on is that many parties put men in winnable seats and women in unwinnable seats when it comes to selecting candidates. They hit their gender quotas but the women are the third candidates in a constituency and unlikely to get elected. This is a core reason we have very little movement in the number of women getting elected. I would love to know how the witnesses would look at addressing this point.

I want to go back to a point raised by Senator Higgins, which I very much agree with, which is why I raised the point on the minimum wage. Too often reports focus on employment rates as a positive or negative for women as opposed to looking in the round at well-being. Reports should include the fact that more women do leave the workforce but we should address it in the way I referred to earlier, which is by stating it is okay if women want to stay at home. We do not need to give a value to it but we should include other measures so that if it is the choice of women advice can be given and they can be supported. They should still have a living wage even if they are doing more caring. We have to recognise that perhaps it is not such a bad thing that our culture has women staying at home. It is not a negative and is something we need our policy instruments to recognise and then address through how these women are supported in this caring role. The citizens' assembly has found that caring is not a negative but a positive. It is often framed as a negative with regard to employment and that women have to do the caring. They want to do the caring and they are looking to the State to support them in this care.