Ms Frances Byrne:

We smiled at each other when Senator Clonan made the comment about the cultural context for this because we talk about it all the time. We have extensive international partnerships for carrying out research and so on. As you get to know people, they ask why. For the historical context, I was going to make a different analogy but there are two issues. One is the place of women historically. We are very aware, as everyone is, of the following. I am a bit of a nerd so I look online at night and see the committee members in here until 10 p.m. or 11 p.m., which is nuts. If one is facing into that kind of political existence and career and is of the gender that is traditionally associated with care, what does one do? It is why we have seen few women in politics; we know all of that. The absence of women in politics has had an impact. There is a traditional view of women. I cannot say I am old enough to remember the marriage bar but I was alive and young at the time. I have relatives who were affected by it.

The second issue is that when we did move ahead in Ireland, we looked at the area from two perspectives. One can understand both perspectives and this is not a criticism of previous Governments. One was the perspective of disadvantaged children, quite rightly, and the other perspective was the labour market participation of women, also quite rightly. As the Senator knows well, Ireland was not good on the issue of children's rights. We need to start seeing this as a right in the same way that we would not countenance primary or secondary school education being taken away from children. If we were setting up early years care and education tomorrow, we would not end up with the system we have now. What is good and important for children must be at the forefront of our minds. Historically, we have not been good at considering those issues. It is a double whammy, if you like. I do not mean to be facetious when I say that.