Ms Caitr?ona Gleeson:

In terms of caring responsibilities, I would refer the committee to the National Women's Council toolkit. We need a radical culture shift, particularly in local government but also within the Oireachtas. The Ceann Comhairle has assured us that the implementation of some changes to the running of the Dáil are imminent. Sessions will be run in parallel so that working hours can be shortened. The current situation is not helping anybody with caring responsibilities at all. It is also not helpful in terms of quality of life and is not good for decision-making.

These are practical things that could happen quite quickly if there was a will to do so. In terms of care responsibilities, which brings in the committee's other work on the Constitution, we must get at the disproportionate responsibility of care that is held predominantly by women and the attitudes within society that maintain that. In a previous role I oversaw research that examined attitudes towards decision-making in the home, roles within the home and leadership. Some 30% of young men and older men still believe that women should be the main carers and men should be the main managers of the finances. It is worrying that men aged between 18 and 25 still hold these attitudes. The wider constitutional work on valuing care and also looking at the equal distribution of care is critical. We would support that article.

In terms of family-friendly locally, I worked in a partnership company in 2001 and at that point there was farm relief expenses for board members to be able to attend committees but there was no childcare relief or care relief expenses. If we can accommodate the animals being taken care of we can accommodate children being taken cared of. That should be built in to the expense mechanism within local government.

I welcome very much the proposals from the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke. I am aware that the working group on the non-pay measures in the Moorhead report has put forward a number of measures. The Moorhead report is strong but it is did not go far enough on the role of the councillor and the remuneration of councillors. The role is not as attractive as it could be and it does not have as much support as it should have in terms of basic administrative support for councillors, akin to what Oireachtas Members have. That would be welcome, and would make the role more attractive. We must target women right across the spectrum, from very young, and even into schools, as we in SHE are doing to get young girls more engaged in politics. The research shows that girls are likely to step away at the age of 12 and 13 from an ambition in politics whereas boys continue. It is equivalent to science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM, and to women in sport. As we are celebrating some incredible successes this week, we must look at that in politics as well and our relationship with it. We must make it an attractive role by focusing on the family-friendly piece and the inclusion piece. If we think about families that are more marginalised in society, it is about making the Dáil and the local chambers attractive to those families and how they are represented.

With regard to the Seanad, I do not have the technical solutions and, therefore, I will defer to others but we cannot rely on the will of the Taoiseach and the list system. We welcome that in terms of the intervention because we were concerned when the numbers dropped so low following the Seanad elections. There should be mechanisms in place to ensure there is a quota system on all of the panels. We welcome parties being proactive in that regard, but we should not rely on the will; it should be a standard that we expect. Ultimately, the Houses need to be reflective of society. I will leave it at that.