Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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I welcome the delegation. Deputy Boyd Barrett and I attended a meeting recently with a Member of the Scottish Parliament who outlined some of the methodologies used in Scotland. It has a block grant because it only has a devolved government and does not have the kind of fiscal independence we still have. Are there other jurisdictions where there is a more meaningful process? We have been talking about equality proofing for all of my time in this Dáil going back to the mid-1990s, yet there are so many issues.

Age Action Ireland appeared before the committee a few months ago. A number of us also raised issues relating to gender inequality, for example, the changes made to the PRSI stamps records in 2012. The Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance have resolutely refused to embark on any restoration. As Professor Alan Barrett of ESRI said, we changed the rules in the middle of the game. In particular, older women and the cohort of women from the 1950s and early 1960s were grossly discriminated against. In respect of the process the witnesses have evolved, are we talking about relentlessly coming forward with the kind of funding that would be necessary to make that restoration to help people might now be losing €30, €40 or €50 per week or more for the rest of their lives and who worked very hard for 25 or 30 years in the economy and who also worked very hard in the home? A similar example is the exclusion of women who do not have a recent stamps record from community employment and easy pathways back into the workforce. There are so many examples. For example, in the disability area, we have been looking for the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to be passed, particularly with regard to assessments for children with disabilities where families are waiting for a long time. As part of the process, would we have definitive mechanisms where, for example, we could say that discrimination with regard to insurance for the older cohort of mostly female workers, although there are some men among it, would be phased out? Do other jurisdictions have these mechanisms?