Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There is a range of issues around gender equality that one could focus in on and we do not have the time in such a short space here. I say to the Taoiseach that the issue of gender equality should be a consistent integral part of daily Government policy and we should not have to await a citizens' assembly to improve and focus on services for women and policies around women.

Although people talk about the gender pay gap, the key issue, more specifically, is that many women are in low-pay occupations and very little has been done to change that story.

We can take childcare as an example. There are many strategies which note the importance of childcare, particularly between the ages from birth to three years and six years old. A child will learn more from birth to three years than he or she will for the rest of his or her life. Nevertheless, people in the childcare sector are among the lowest paid. Many people complete degrees in college in early childhood development, Montessori and a variety of areas specifically focused on professional childcare and early education. We could contrast and compare their salaries with those in primary, secondary or third level education but there is really no comparison. The bulk of people in childcare - they are not all but are mostly women - are on the minimum wage in many instances. I predict this will be a great inhibitor of the growth and expansion of childcare. We have all received representations in that regard.

We could also look at section 39 organisations, taking in nurses and allied health professionals, that are again discriminated against under Government pay policy. The pensions anomaly hit many more women than men. The decisions in that regard were taken by the Fine Gael-Labour Government. We must ask fundamental questions as to why, in many of the professions in the areas of healthcare and childcare, women are at the centre of what is essentially a low-pay regime. That needs to change and we do not need the Citizens' Assembly in order to start working on it.

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