Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Shortly after the election, the National Women's Council held a panel discussion with five women panellists, a woman moderator and 250 women in the room. It took three or four hours of my time. I was asking myself what the point was because everyone there was already convinced. What Dr. O'Sullivan said about working from home is really important. It is so easy to put a wash on and do all of those things but it is also so easy to retain responsibility for all of those tasks. In terms of flexibility in corporate culture, I told a story before about a friend of mine going from a five-day week to a three-day week when she had her second child. I was telling her not do it because of her pension and the possibility of promotion and saying everything would change, instead of proposing the obvious solution, which was for the couple to both work a four-day week. However, it was just not culturally acceptable in the corporate world for a couple to say they had had a second child and wanted to do a four-day week for the next three or four years. Until that is culturally acceptable in the major commercial organisations, nothing will change because every time a woman drops from a five-day to a three-day week instead of both partners moving to a four-day week, it only entrenches the position for many more years. That was the point I wanted to make.