Ms Camille Loftus:

I would first like to clarify to members that they would have received a more detailed submission from us here today had I not been suffering from the flu for the last week. I will take detailed note of any questions members might have here today and we are more than happy to follow up today's meeting with more detail, should that be useful.

When we look at the statistics from the past few years that Ms Allen has just outlined for us, one thing that becomes very clear is how issues of inequality intersect. When we look at issues of gender inequality, we are also looking at issues on how to effectively tackle poverty. Recognising how these issues intersect with one other, the different impact on married and single women as opposed to married and single men, for example, is an important dynamic in putting together a successful approach in this regard. Ms Allen also mentioned that gender and equality budgeting is a good way to go because it is the right thing to do to ensure that everybody gets to participate to the best extent they can. What we can now see, however, is that international institutions are very much rolling in behind gender and equality budgeting as a key component of growth strategies. The IMF and the World Bank, for example, have both rolled in behind this as a way of amplifying countries' growth. In 2015, the McKinsey Global Institute produced a study in which it was estimated that were one to look at this on a regional basis and ask every country to match the performance of the best in that region, $12 trillion could be added to annual GDP, that is, about the same as the current GDP of Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom combined. Gender budgeting is not only the right thing to do; it also feeds economic growth. These are mutually reinforcing rather than mutually exclusive objectives.

There is no doubt but that fully implementing a comprehensive model of gender and equality budgeting is a complex and difficult thing to do and it will take us a few years to bring it to full expression. Austria provides us with a useful example in this regard and number of aspects to the Austrian approach are worth highlighting. One is the fact that Austria introduced gender and equality budgeting within the context of a broader suite of reforms to the budgetary process. This is exactly our aspiration here. Reviews of gender budgeting over the past 15 years have identified that integration is an important aspect to success. Austria moved to a performance-managed system of budgeting, just as we are doing now, and named gender equality as one of its five chapters within that. It has been given an explicit role and function within the budget process and is one of two constitutionally-mandated principles embedded in core budget legislation in Austria. One example to emerge from the implementation of a gender budgeting process in Austria was the reduction of the effective tax rate for second earners in a household. We have known for a long time that second earners are very responsive to financial incentives, that they are the people facing some of the highest financial incentives in Ireland and that they are predominantly women. A measure like this helps women who want to get back into the labour market to do so. This, in turn, fuels growth.

Looking at the broader suite of gender budgeting approaches implemented in Europe, a number of things could help this committee make an impact and advance the process. One approach applied in Austria and in many other countries with successful gender budgeting processes is the use of an equality budget statement as a core element in the overall suite of budget documentation. Such a statement brings together the equality priorities of each Department into one comprehensive document. This would be of considerable value to the committee itself in its carrying out of its oversight role. I understand the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has already written to all of the line Departments to request that they provide such priorities. This committee might like to engage with the other sectoral committees on a matter like this, focusing on particular policy areas so as to draw out the key gender equality priorities for the forthcoming budget. Such a statement would also provide a good metric against which we can assess progress or otherwise. It would be a clear statement of what it is that we are trying to do, an allocation of a range of resources around that and a better metric for assessing success or lack thereof.

Unfortunately, I understand that the Oireachtas budget office has not yet been established and is thus unlikely to have an input into the budget process this year.