Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is a matter of changing culture as well. At recent meetings, we discovered the gender pay gap is higher among higher earners and close to zero among the lower paid workers. The gap widens for mothers of children – really, we could say working women. When a woman goes to work, she has to earn enough. She is trying to earn as much as her male counterpart but also has to earn enough to pay another woman. There is great solidarity shown in childcare because a woman will generally depend on another woman to mind her children so she can go out to work. The idea of the village raising the child is quite an old concept. I wonder how long the concept of the stay-at-home mother dates back, because women have always had to work.

I have a question on the living wage. It is very much tied in with the gender pay gap. The number of people who depend on having their wages topped up by the State or having exorbitant rents paid is significant. We have socialism when it suits capitalism all the time. In its argument on the move from the minimum wage to the living wage, IBEC said it felt that work had a capped value and that there would be job losses owing to outsourcing to other countries and so on. However, we have had meetings here at which it was shown that this was not really the case. We received reports to back that up. Lately, many smaller businesses have been saying the minimum wage is causing problems with recruitment and retention. I visited many businesses over the recess and remember somebody in SuperValu saying to me that they wanted their workers to be able to afford to shop there. Those who work in restaurants need to have enough money to dine in restaurants every so often. Does IBEC think it properly represents SMEs? You could cut off your nose to spite your face sometimes in that the economy needs workers with a disposable income if the whole shebang is to keep going.