Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. I appreciate that. Fair play to him. What we just saw was extremely disrespectful.

Equality is good for our society. Obviously, gender equality is critical in so far as 50% of the world's population suffer systematic discrimination and oppression and are disproportionately impacted by poverty, war and all of the injustices and inequalities that exist in our world, given these disproportionately impact on women. If women do not have equality, our entire society suffers. It is imperative for the good of all that we have real equality for women, as part of a fight for greater equality in society generally, because we will live in a better world and have a better future if we achieve that.

The way budgeting has been done to date is frustrating because it does not seem to have any particular objective at all, and it is only with this discussion that we are beginning to address that. For example, I do not know, going into any budget, what exactly the point is of the budget. There does not seem to be any particular point other than to play by certain fiscal rules or to balance books just for the sake of it, or for a thing called economic growth, the benefits of which are a little difficult to ascertain when we live in a country which has the highest levels of economic growth in Europe, yet has a massive housing crisis, a massive health crisis, cannot deal with climate change and has an education system in serious trouble, as our universities tumble down the international rankings and we have the most overcrowded classrooms in the Western world. It makes one wonder what exactly is the connection between the Moses and prophets of economic growth and the actual quality of life of our citizens. Equality budgeting focuses on that and says there should be a point to a budget, and that point should be to have a better society, which means a more equal society, and to address inequalities. One of the biggest inequalities of them all is gender inequality, so it is critical we go down this road. Senator Alice-Mary Higgins has been commended and I should add my voice to that commendation for her efforts in bringing this issue forward.

What if we had these kinds of impact assessments on the consequences of gender inequality and other forms of inequality in our society over the last ten years?

I do not know if things would have been different, but we certainly would have had greater evidence to argue against some of what happened. It is deeply ironic that the Deputy who has just left was the Minister for Social Protection when precisely the most savage attacks on women in Irish society took place, in particular in the 2012 budget. This is from the ESRI, not just us. We said it at the time the attacks were launched, in particular the attacks on single parents with the cuts to child benefit, the income disregard for single mothers, rent allowance, with disastrous consequences, and the capital housing budgets. One can go through the list. There were cuts to jobseeker's allowance for young people under 26 years of age. All of this happened in 2012. The ESRI has confirmed with the application of the newly adapted SWITCH model, which takes into account gender impacts, that single mothers suffered the worst while working mothers in couples with children were hit the second worst. These savage attacks had a huge impact on our society generally, increasing poverty and deprivation, and the worst victims were single parents and mothers generally. Where is some acknowledgement of the damage that was done? There might have been an argument about it having to be done, which I would not accept, but at least some acknowledgement of the damage done to some of the most vulnerable women by those who implemented those attacks at the time would be welcome.

It is disappointing that the Government did not take on the recommendation for a gender impact statement in the budget. We need to have that. It is something that can be done in a simplified way. This is where we have to think about it. We must consider how to make it simple and digestible for people to understand the impacts on different groups. To some extent, it is already done at the back of the budget book where examples are given of the social and economic impact of different budgetary measures. For example, one sees the impact on a public sector worker earning the average industrial wage. The example is also given of the impact on a self-employed person in the private sector who earns a particular income. We need to have various metrics covering the different impacts of certain budgetary measures and to put those together in a digestible form to allow people to understand the effects on different groups, including women, about whom we are speaking today, but also persons with disabilities who constitute another group on whom the impact of budgetary measures is something we desperately need to quantify. People with disabilities are another group who suffered quite savagely as a result of the austerity cuts of the past seven or eight years.

I conclude on that and within my time as the Acting Chairman, Deputy Durkan, will be glad to know. I congratulate those who produced the report. I hope the Government is taking this stuff on board and will take it seriously. It will benefit all of us. It will benefit women and groups who suffer inequality and oppression. It will benefit our entire society and make for a better future.

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