Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair and welcome the Taoiseach to the committee today.

I would like to start off by talking about the revelations within the Citizens' Assembly. It was a unique time because it was during the pandemic. Much of the work took place online. We have heard from some of those who were involved in it and that gave a good footing for this committee.

Something that surprised many people was the amount of references there are to care in this Citizens' Assembly report and in the recommendations. Prior to the pandemic, people would not have recognised that importance of well-being, possibly to the extent that this Citizens' Assembly did.

It is important to point out in relation to recommendations 1 to 3, inclusive, that this is a different referendum from the referendums that were being spoken about previously and it is not a case that people have been waiting for this referendum and now we have to get on with it. Previously, it was removing reference to the place of a woman in the home whereas now it is about putting into the Constitution a reference to the importance of care work. I would like to hear the Taoiseach's thoughts on that. The Green Party was probably the only party that did not want to see the reference removed in its entirety, but wanted it changed to be something that was more reflective of the caring nature and value of the work done by women and men and those of all genders in the home and changed to be something which did not leave all of the caring responsibilities with one particular gender.

The other point that I wanted to raise with the Taoiseach is the question of leadership, which we have discussed in detail in this committee and had excellent witnesses before us. With quotas, we have not seen a change in the numbers of women being elected. I have a deep concern that some of the parties are not putting women into electable seats sometimes and we need to call on political parties to do more. It is not enough that we have, as we will have, a necessity to have 40% women on the ticket if we only return half of that into the Dáil. That is not good enough.

On my position, I am chair of my party. We are looking to get women, but we also need to make sure that it is not only putting women down on paper but dealing with what it takes to get women over the line. One suggestion was that we look perhaps at something like what the Taoiseach had done, which was to put in mainly women when it came to the Taoiseach's nominees for the Seanad. That really shifted the balance in the Seanad. We now have 40% women in the Seanad. It means that we bring up many issues that relate to women's lives that probably do not come up in the Dáil to the same extent. Let us be innovative about it but let us also push back on the political parties to do more to get women over the line.