Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I put it to the Minister that this is the time and place to discuss this issue. A person democratically elected to this House has tabled an amendment to legislation that is to pass through this House this evening and this is when we are debating it and hearing the Government's response. A year and a half ago, legislation on equality budgeting was produced by my party and at that time the Government's response was that an initiative would be taken to bring forward its own equality impact assessment of budgets, etc. When the Independent group brings forward not legislation, but a detailed motion on the matter, there is more movement from the Government but a repeat of the assertions that were made during the debate a year and a half ago.

Today there is a Bill. This is where we put it into law. Whatever is said during Private Members' time in the Dáil by the Government, there is no requirement on the Government to follow through. There is no protection, for example, for women or persons with disabilities, to have recourse to the legal mechanisms of the State to assert that the Government acted unlawfully in introducing a budget in 2015 or 2016 without carrying out an equality impact assessment. That will not emerge as a result of the motion that may be passed in the next 48 hours following acceptance of the amendment that the Government puts forward. If we were to put it into legislation tonight, however, then we would see something very different.

I am disappointed. If the Minister thinks that something substantial will happen, I will welcome it. However, for the reasons that I outlined earlier, I would like to see the legislative basis for something of that nature. As for what I have heard so far from the Minister, I am mindful that he is holding back to see what his colleague will say later on this evening when this amendment on the Bill will be dispensed with and there will be no opportunity to deal with it again.

Regarding the Minister, Deputy Noonan's contribution on Committee Stage, before the Government was forced into tabling a counter-motion, the argument he put forward was that equality budgeting is included already in the budget book, which is the height of nonsense. The analysis, in the case of Sarah and Mick, etc., and the impact that the provisions would have on different income sectors is not the type of equality budgeting that we would have and the reliance on information, such as that of the ESRI, that tax has not had an impact, in particular, on gender, may or may not be accurate. What we are talking about here is an overall assessment of the impact on budgets on certain groups. In the period the Minister talked about, 2009 to 2014, I would contend that the issue of child benefit payments, that were cut continually by the Government, impacted on a section of society which was female. Other issues include the taxation of maternity benefit and the other changes to maternity benefit. The respite grant payment also predominantly goes to females, who are largely the carers in society. I would contend that there has been more of an impact on females than on males, and there were other such measures in different budgets. That is something that equality budgeting would pick up on. It is not something that the ESRI is picking up on because it deals with tax measures, but one must look at it in the round.

I am disappointed, to say the least, that we do not have a legislative basis for equality budgeting. I will listen carefully to what the Minister's colleague will say, but I hope it is more than what was said a year and a half ago. As I said to the Minister previously, this Government's record on equality and equality budgeting is a disgrace. If we are to see equality budgeting, the Minister will be in his fifth year before it is introduced. There was no reason that it was not introduced before the budget. If the Government is committed to introducing equality budgeting, then let us have an assessment of this budget in terms of the different sections of society and let us have a debate about what are they right groups of individuals that we should be assessing.

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