Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister and the two Ministers of State for remaining here and I thank them for their thoughtful contributions. I was struck by all three contributions. I doubt that any Minister other than the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, has acknowledged that a patriarchal society still exists, sexism still exists and women still face misogyny in everyday life. He stated women are over-represented in the sectors that have been badly affected by the pandemic. The Ministers of State, Deputies Rabbitte and Butler, also made very interesting contributions, which I welcome. I, too, have all the statistics here. We have heard them and I am not going to repeat them. I am going to use my five minutes to ask the Minister and Ministers of State, considering that they are now in leadership positions, what they are going to do about the issues that arise.

Let us consider domestic violence. Covid has put the spotlight on inequality in Ireland. As somebody who has the privilege of coming from a large family, equally balanced with seven boys and seven girls, I am all for equality. We are putting the spotlight on women and women's rights today simply because women have suffered and continue to suffer at a rate that is completely unacceptable.

Let us look at domestic violence. We know what the figures are and we know we do not have enough refuges. It is a simple, practical matter to make them available. It is not that hard. We have been talking in terms of Monopoly money, amounting to billions of euro. I do not mean to be dismissive but in the midst of providing all that money, we did not say we needed more refuges and that we would build them and make them multipurpose in the hope that they would not always be necessary and could then be used for something else.

The pandemic put the spotlight on childcare. What is the answer? It is that we look on childcare as an essential service and that the State should provide it on a non-profit basis. There is always room for the private sector in every sphere of life but the State must be seen to provide childcare because it is an essential service. The State must also be seen to provide housing, not as a commodity, something to be traded on the international market or something for vulture funds, but as a home where we can provide security so children and parents can take part in society. These are basic things and we can do something about them.

The theme for this year is women in leadership. It is a worthy theme but it is not something that jumps out at me. What jumps out at me over the last year are the women and men on the ground who have struggled gallantly so that the health service could continue and children with disabilities could be minded at home. I might come back to what the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, said about that in a minute. I know people in my area who are minding loved ones with Alzheimer's disease 24 hours a day. The Tánaiste's comments, made when he was Taoiseach, distinguishing people getting up early in the morning still grate on me because some people do not get to bed at all. They are up all night minding others and saving the State a fortune.

The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, made a comment, with which I agree, about parents of children with disabilities and how they have always been sort of locked down. The difference this time was that we could have made a decision as a society to designate services for children with special needs as essential. We can still do that so that never again will we repeat the mistake of leaving children at disabilities at home regressing. That is a practical step that could be taken.

Public health has been utterly ignored. The Crowe Horwath report was published in December 2018, well before the pandemic. It was a moderate report, not a very radical one, which highlighted what was needed. Public health is a profession that is dominated by women which was utterly ignored, leaving us ill-prepared for the pandemic and the other pandemics that will come our way.

We also ignored student nurses in the pandemic. We could have done something practical very quickly. We did not do that either. Then we set up NPHET and left off women's voices. I see the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, nodding and I know her heart is in the right place but she is in power and can make decisions that change things. I am not giving out about NPHET but it was never fit for purpose. I know its members worked into the night and were up early every morning but NPHET was not representative. Its did not have eyes to see the consequences of its decisions. That was and remains fatal. That, too, can be changed. There was a structure in place for emergency preparation but it was not used. It was simply ignored.

On top of that, as it happens, because politics are dominated by men, we have the three wise men, as I call them, at the top and we sometimes see a great lack of wisdom. The challenge is for women to take power, stand up, take courage in our hands and show the way. I do that as best I can in opposition because that is the role I have. We all perform our role as best we can. It is time to recognise the work on the ground that is underpaid, unpaid and undervalued and which keeps our economy going.

There is something we can do, as the Ceann Comhairle asked. Instead of having statements once a year, we could gender-proof and poverty-proof all our budgets and policies to ensure we have an equal society because that would be better for all of us in the end and would lead to a thriving and sustainable economy.

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