Dáil debates

Wednesday, 20 October 2021

Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality: Statements

 

6:32 pm

Photo of Seán CanneySeán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I call that gender balance. I am delighted to speak on the subject this evening. I spoke earlier with the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, about another subject, namely, autism. This is an issue the Citizens' Assembly has brought to the fore. As a previous speaker said, having a report is one thing, but implementing it to make change happen is the challenge. Sometimes the challenge can cost money, but at the end of the day if we put in services to support women in whatever they want to do in life, we will get the rewards back in abundance.

I have come across certain issues myself. For instance, in sports, especially when ladies started to play Gaelic football, there were no facilities for them. They had pitches but no changing facilities. Additional funding must be made available to the GAA and other organisations promoting soccer, rugby and camogie for men and women to make sure there is full participation by women as well as by men. We must make sure the facilities are there so that people can use changing areas in comfort and in a way that is right. It is a small investment for a long-term gain. It is important for the well-being of young ladies that they play sport. Playing competitive team sports is also good for their overall development.

Politics has been discussed. There is a majority of women on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Disability Matters. There are two men on the committee. I have never worked on a committee like it before. It is so full of people who want to work, who get on and focus on what we have to do. We must have more such people in politics. It is all right to say we must have gender balance, but it must be meaningful. A lot of political parties say they must maintain a quota rather than saying they want to maintain a quota. The attitude is they do it because they have to do it rather than because it is the right thing to do. We must encourage more young people to get involved in politics. At the same time, one of the difficulties is the amount of abuse women in politics get. That is totally unacceptable. It seems women are targeted on social media and elsewhere. We should speak up and tell people to stop it. The social media platforms have a role to play. We cannot have good people in politics, who can make changes for the betterment of all, being abused on social media just because they are women. That is totally wrong.

The other issue I wish to raise relates to social welfare and pension rights. In the past we have discriminated against women because they were homemakers. We brought in some measures to try to address the imbalance. The day has come whereby we must never go back to that system. Anybody who stays at home by choice to raise his or her family should not be discriminated against when it comes to pension rights. The same applies to childcare services. This has been said to the Minister and I know he has taken some steps to get more funding into the area. It is important to make sure both parents have the choice to work if they want and that they are backed up with a proper childcare service.

I wish to relate to the Minister an experience I had lately, which I thought was brilliant, when a group of women contacted me and wanted to meet me.

They are setting up a women's shed in Tuam. I raised this in the House last week. Men's sheds in Ireland have been a great success and we need to make sure that if women want to set up women's sheds, they should be entitled to do that and we should support them in the same way that we supported the men's sheds. Again, people might say, “Sure the women are okay, they can talk and do this, that and the other”, but many women need company and they also want to contribute. If they are working together, they can come up with some great contributions for the community and for one another.

I am not sure how much of my time remains but I will leave it at that.

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