Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I thank the witnesses for their time and submissions and for their ongoing work in their respective fields. I very much appreciate it. I will start with the National Women's Council and then move to Social Justice Ireland. I was delighted to hear the National Women's Council describe the child care work of the Minister, Deputy Zappone, as breakthrough work. I was gobsmacked at the cacophony of negativity that it was greeted with. The witness summed it up well. It is the first step in a fundamentally different direction. I was stunned to hear so many people stand up and just give out about it. For every person I heard compliment it, I heard five people say it did not go far enough, which was very disappointing because the Minister should have been supported in what she was trying to do. The National Women's Council has struck the balance well by recognising it as a step and, critically, as a fundamentally new direction for the country to get somewhere. I want to acknowledge that. It is nice to see some positivity rather than all the negativity the Minister has been subjected to since the budget. I just wanted to point that out.

Are the witnesses finding that the pay gap, which grew by 2% during the recession, is steady across the ages? Is it narrowing? Are we fixing it at younger ages between men and women or is it maintaining for men and women in their 20s, 30s and 40s?