Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I should say I had the privilege of being able to appoint four Members to the Seanad as Taoiseach's nominees in 2020 and all four were female. I also had the privilege to nominate the Leader of the Seanad, who is female, so I do have to promote men the odd time as well. Certainly, on the Seanad side at least, I think my record is okay in that regard.

On the referendum, we considered this under the previous Government and came to the view we would prefer to delete the entire section relating to the woman's place in the home, which belongs to a different time. While I think it was well intentioned at the time, it is not 1937 anymore. We made that decision as a Government when we consulted more widely and we decided not to proceed with that. We came to the view, as the assembly did, that we should replace it with a new, more modern amendment that reflects what modern families in Ireland look like, which is not very different from what the process would have been in the 1930s. That would include single-parent headed families, LGBT families and so on, and we decided also to recognise care in the Constitution.

When it comes to the Constitution, the devil is always in the detail, and once something is put into the Constitution, the power to determine what it means is given to the courts, not to the elected Members of the Oireachtas. I am always a little nervous about that. I believe that in a democracy, ultimately, the elected people in this House should make the decisions, ideally not the courts. It is all very well to say we want an Article in the Constitution that says something with which we all agree, but we need to make sure we think through the implications of how that might be interpreted. That has happened a bit too often in the past and we need to be careful about it. It is about getting the wording right.

On the living wage question and the figure of 60% of the median wage, that is not a Government decision, at least not yet. At the moment, it is just the unanimous recommendation of the Low Pay Commission. The workers' representatives, the employers' representatives and the independents and academics all recommended we go for 60% of the median wage, rising to 66% of the median over time. It is backed up with the detailed research paper conducted by Maynooth University, all of which has been published. If I were to explain the thinking, which is just the commission’s thinking and does not yet reflect a Government decision, when the minimum wage was introduced, it amounted to about 60% of the median wage. While the minimum wage has increased ahead of inflation over the past 20 years - not every year but in the round - it has not kept up with median earnings, and we want to restore that and create a legal link between median earnings and people on the lowest pay in order that, as the tide rises, we will make sure it rises for those on the lowest pay as well. That will help eliminate low pay in our society, which is defined as people earning less than 66% of the median wage.

There is an alternative approach, the minimum essential standards of living, MESL, which involves creating a basket of goods and services that anyone should be able to afford to have a dignified life. That is an option but there are three difficulties with it, the first of which is that it is subjective. People will have different views as to what should be in the basket. The figure 66% of median is easily calculated and the Central Statistics Office, CSO, can produce that figure in a day, whereas there would be rows over what should and should not be in the basket.

Second, if we are successful over the coming years, as I think we will be, in dramatically reducing the costs of public transport, childcare and rent, that basket will actually shrink, meaning a living wage calculated in that way could be reduced as we get on top of some of the high costs that exist in Ireland, such as for childcare, healthcare, education and rent. It would seem strange to me that median wages would increase while the basket would decrease, but that is one of the potential problems with that model.

The third issue is that in a recession, people could be laid off, as we saw 12 or 13 years ago, with the cost of living nonetheless rising, and we could become hamstrung by that model. In order to save jobs, sometimes pay needs to fall, but that option would not be available if the basket kept increasing. Employers, therefore, would have to cut hours and lay off more people to satisfy the basket. They are three practical problems with that model and the research is available for people to read.

On the total contributions approach, that is being led by the Minister for Social Protection rather than me. The thinking is that people can start work at 16, as many of us will have done with part-time jobs and so on, and they generally finish work at 66, a period of 50 years. We are now going to allow people, if they so choose, to work until 70, a period of 54 years. The idea is that of those 50 to 54 years, a person should contribute at least 40 years, which still leaves time for study, time out and so on. The proposal is very much to recognise care; it will not recognise only PRSI credited contributions. It provides for a certain number of years of care, either of a child or of a person in need of care. That is recognised as part of the proposal. I think there is a maximum number of years, although I cannot recall exactly what it is. It is not just about paying cash contributions into the Social Insurance Fund; the contribution of care is recognised in the proposal as well.