Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to go slightly off script at the beginning and commend the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan. When we have statements or a discussion in this Chamber, Ministers and Ministers of State do not generally move outside their ministerial area to comment. However, the Minister of State has every right to lead the discussion here this evening given the immense courage she showed last July when she stood in the convention centre and declared that she had been a victim of sexual harassment and assault. I commend her on that. I said that to her privately but I also wanted to say it on the record of the Dáil. It takes courage to speak out, whether it is a child calling out a bully in a schoolyard or a woman calling out someone who has perpetrated a sexual assault. It is important that it is called out each and every time. It takes immense courage and I say that in all sincerity.

I commend Dr. Catherine Day and all the members of the Citizens' Assembly. I was very sceptical about the assembly when it was first set up. I felt that these Houses, the body politic, were where we debate and propose new legislation and act on it. I felt the assembly was an exercise in kicking the can down the road but it has excelled and done a great job. I hope it will look at more bodies of work.

I will speak about a number of issues that have not been referenced yet, the first of which is gender poverty. This is a recurring theme when I hold clinics throughout my county. A lot of women come to me and tell me they have been left holding the children. Their husband, boyfriend or partner is gone and pays no maintenance. I am sure Deputies from all over the country can relate to this. So many of these women have tried to go through the courts. They have tried the nice way and the hard way but they are left in a position of gendered poverty because their partner is not paying up.

On the other side of the equation, there are many dads who are not given access to their children. The child is held back in order to try to leverage money. It should not happen either way. There should be a God-given right for a parents to see their child, as long as they do not pose a threat to that child or the other parent but there is also an undisputable moral and legal obligation to support one's child through life until he or she reaches adulthood. The Dáil needs to do more in that regard because it is still a huge gender issue that has not been dealt with properly by successive Governments.

I will turn now to the issue of political under-representation of women. I was in a classroom 18 months ago, before I was elected to the Dáil. There were many girls sitting in front of me each day in fourth class in Parteen National School, many of whom would do a far better job than me in this Chamber in terms of speaking up for themselves, for their gender and for young people overall. Something happens in the adolescent years. I do not know if it is a societal or cultural issue but their natural ability recedes. I do not know how it is dumbed down. I do not know if it happens within the peer grouping or the education system. I am not quite sure. Perhaps it is a cultural issue but sometimes I meet very confident 12-year-olds but they lack that confidence when they get to 18 or 19. They have dropped out of sport and other activities. Some of them would make fantastic politicians - far better than me. I do not want to criticise the other Deputies in Clare but they would probably do a better job than all of us combined, yet they do not engage in public life. I have long been sceptical of imposed gender quotas and believe there are other barriers we need to remove along the way.

We are very good as a nation at speaking to other countries. When our Government representatives speak to their counterparts in the Middle East, for example, they reference women's rights. The time has come when we can no longer shy away from the fact that in some sectors of Irish society, culturally, the woman is still servile in the home. That is a fact, culturally, in some parts of Irish society. We need to address what is happening on the home front as well. Of course, we need to speak up about what is happening in the Middle East but we need to have the backs of Irish women too, of all ethnic groupings.

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