Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In looking at this report, which I think is the first of its kind to be presented to the Dáil, I am conscious that, so far, I am the only woman who has spoken. In terms of gender organisation of the Dáil, many of my women colleagues have young children and probably have a better place to be late on a Thursday evening than be here in the Dáil to speak. Had there been some more gender sensitivity with the time chosen, it might have been possible for many more of our valued women colleagues in the Dáil to contribute to this debate and perhaps bring some flavour of personal knowledge to the debate. The issue is quite personal to many women and potentially very important.

I welcome the debate. That a discussion on an element of gender equality has taken place here is a step forward in the year of the 100th anniversary of women getting the vote. Countess Markievicz said she devoted her life to trying to ensure that women got freedom and equality, particularly and obviously in Ireland. She also joined causes with women throughout the world. It is important for us to use the knowledge and learning gained by women around the world to pursue a broad objective of essentially creating a more inclusive society, which includes women as equals in what the society does and as equals in what Parliament proposes and disposes.

The three previous speakers concentrated mainly on a technical discussion of gender budgeting. Some of the language is challenging enough to understand. It is technical language. I would like us to use language that is available to all women and men regardless of their education levels.

My professional background is in accounting. I start with a basic accounting concept about accounts: what should accounts do? A set of accounts or accounting reports should seek to give a true and fair view of what has happened, what the resources are used for, and in terms of current accounting, what the outcomes have been and whether those outcomes have been fair. True and fair should be the objectives of gender budgeting. It would tell us how resources are disbursed in terms of fairness between men, women and children and between different groups in society. For example, people may need additional support from the State because they have a disability, whether they are men or women. In economic and ethical terms, it is quite a useful concept to adopt as a fresh way of looking at budgetary arithmetic.

Budget 2019 contained a few standout things that indicated that gender budgeting did not get significant consideration. For the third year in a row there has been no increase in child benefit. As we know, child benefit is one of the social welfare payments which is paid directly to the caring parent, usually the mother. For the third year in a row in this period of restoration following a very severe collapse of the economy, nothing has been done by either of the two big parties for women who, while not the only caregivers, are very often the principal caregivers for children in a family. Child benefit is a very important payment, but the Government saw fit not to go near it.

The domiciliary care allowance is paid usually to the caring parent in the case of a child who is assessed as having special needs. For the third year in a row, nothing was done with that very important payment. As Dr. Keane of the ESRI told the Committee on Budgetary Oversight some time ago, carers are largely women. In about 70% of families in receipt of the domiciliary care allowance, which is a very significant proportion, one of the parents, usually the mother, goes on to be a full-time carer supported by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. These are just small things, and I would have liked to have seen gender analysis of those aspects of the budget.

Other things stand out in our experience of society. Multiple reports on housing by Government and NGOs show that many families experiencing homelessness comprise children with one parent caring on their own, with most of those families headed by women. This is a very significant group experiencing serious difficulties with homelessness.

Travellers, especially Traveller women and children, often experience very serious issues with income adequacy, access to education, employment and training. If we were building the kind of true and fair view we would try to give of society, these are some of the areas that might be considered for inclusion in a gender budgeting statement. I regret that the Minister, perhaps for technical reasons, could not find the time to include that in the budget.

My colleague, Senator Bacik, has brought a Bill through the Seanad on the gender pay gap. That is very important legislation.

When that gender pay gap Bill comes before the Dáil, I hope Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the other parties and Independents who are represented here will find it possible to address the gender pay gap and we can agree to go forward on a coherent basis.

With regard to the various studies presented to the committee, in the time I have left I want to say that while the ESRI paper was very good, the SWITCH model is very old. When I was Minister for Social Protection, a lot of money was given to the ESRI to improve the model but it is still not good enough to present us with the sufficiently detailed picture that we want in terms of people accepting the gender budgeting report. Some consideration will have to be given by the Minister for Finance to funding the ESRI to improve the SWITCH model so the data examination that is referenced in a whole series of papers as being essential to good quality gender budgeting can be carried out because it cannot be currently. I can observe, as can everybody else here, when there are more men than women in a room, as there are here now. I can observe, when a delegation comes in from the Department of Finance, that they are all male. This tells me something about the role of women in this country and in this Parliament. The SWITCH model is very important. I ask the Minister of State to tell the senior Minister that it is important there is investment in this because it will yield good results.

There are very simple examples around gender-type investments. For example, do we want to lower speeds in estates so women with small children in buggies can safely let the children out to play and the risk of accident is reduced?

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