Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Whip's office for giving me this time.

I am thinking about the media consultant at my school gate who cannot get a 20-hour consultancy contract because she can only work until 2:30 p.m. when 5:30 p.m. is the corporate norm, and she cannot seem to disrupt that. I keep telling her that if she does not tell them that time, she will be fine, but she cannot get back to work. That is a labour market activation issue.

I am thinking about the in-house lawyer in a corporate doing the exact same job as her colleague for 25% less pay who knows that, even though it is the law, she cannot litigate or she will get a "name" in the sector for having done so. It is easier just to wait, ride it out and leave when another opportunity comes.

I am thinking about the professional women whom many of us know who shifted to three-day weeks to manage the needs of their young families when their professional partners stayed at five days. This impacted their activity, inclusion, opportunity, pay and pensions. I wonder how many corporates have a substantial number of their male employees with young children opting for a four-day week for those busy and difficult early years.

I am thinking of the young women, new to the working world, who have decided to drive during the winter because the walk home from the bus stop or the train is not really an option, just in case. I am thinking of all the women who have had gendered violence explained to them by men. I thank the men who have the awareness to back off when it is dark and cross the street or take a different seat on the train or bus rather than crowd the space of a woman who is always vigilant because she has always needed to be.

I am thinking of the women who have moved out, with their children, under the cover of darkness to anywhere except with a violent or abusive man at home instead of him leaving. Today is two years since Ms Kathrina Bentley, long-time activist and now CEO of Men's Aid Ireland, and I held a rally in Dún Laoghaire against coercive control. We did it outside in the open air on the Dún Laoghaire pier to bring it right into people's awareness. Of course, many people were already well aware of the behaviour. Now they had a name for it. People on the pier told us that their sisters, daughters, mothers or aunts went through it. A common phrase used was "he has always been difficult", telling a story that left many women isolated and psychologically damaged in the long run. I welcome the work of An Garda Síochána to prosecute successfully this offence of coercive control that people said could not be prosecuted because it was too nebulous, too based on subtlety, patterns and nuance. I congratulate the Garda on its work and thank it and all of those working to support people of both genders, but predominately women, experiencing domestic abuse, including coercive control. I am also thinking of the two women I met in my constituency who looked afraid at the door when the man of the house came on the scene while I was canvassing. They had to hurry off suddenly.

I am thinking of the women of the Phil debating society in Trinity College who I met last week who made me both laugh and despair with their comic depiction of apologising for taking up physical space, having an opinion, wearing lipstick and not wearing lipstick.

I am thinking of the politicians from all around the world, such as Ms Julia Gillard, Baroness Ruth Davidson and others, who contributed to the excellent online abuse programme on the BBC last night by the journalist, Ms Marianna Spring, herself the recipient of serious online abuse. I am thinking of all the people, but particularly all the young women, with high-profile jobs who have been the subject of social media abuse and misogynistic efforts to silence, undermine or hurt them.

The recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly are welcome and overdue. They set out a vision for change, but it is one that women did not need articulated for them because they have been living these experiences for many years. However, it is welcome to hear their experiences being articulated and, importantly, affirmed by someone of Dr. Catherine Day's standing, having been debated and agreed by the 99 citizens who worked so hard. It is appropriate that their work now be taken forward by their elected public representatives. I wish to take the opportunity to thank the Ceann Comhairle, who responded and acted quickly on my letter to him requesting that a dedicated Oireachtas committee be established on this subject. I similarly thank the Business Committee for its support, particularly my colleagues, the deputy Chief Whip, Deputy Griffin, and the Chief Whip, the Minister of State, Deputy Chambers, for their help in bringing this forward. I also thank Deputy Naughten and the National Women's Council for their considerable help on this. I would like to see the committee established by the end of the year. I thank Members for their support - Deputies Cairns, Bacik and Funchion, who mentioned the committee, the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, and many others who have commented on the need to progress this committee as soon as may be.

I was a councillor on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, which is essentially a gender-equal council. It is the only place in Ireland where girls can look and see an equality of representation. We know there is not equality of representation in the House and we should be embarrassed that we have been dependent on quotas or incentives to get to 37 women. Politics is important because voices and lived experiences influence discourse generally and, crucially, the assumptions and experiences on which policy is based. It is not enough to have women in or near the room when decisions are being made. Women need to be the decision makers as often as men are for there to be equality.

I might disagree with the Citizens' Assembly on one point in particular, namely, that budgets should be gender proofed. It is insufficiently ambitious and continues the ongoing "othering" of women instead of aiming for a society that is influenced equally by equal genders. Budgets would not need to be gender proofed if they were written by women as often as they have been by men and if the most senior civil servants on the financial side of government numbered as many females as is the case on the state side of government, that is, education, justice and so on, which is something that I observed continually while working in government.

Many of these cultural issues would be different if childcare were perceived as a humans with children issue instead of a women's issue. I was asked on radio a little while ago if childcare in the Dáil would get more women into politics. I pointed out the number of men in the House who had recently had babies in their families and how they had not been asked this quite ridiculous question. I said it more forcefully in my head than I did out loud, and I rather regret that now. At this juncture, I might mention my Private Members' Bill on providing for temporary remote voting for Members of the Oireachtas, thereby providing support to people of both genders who need more time at home because they have small babies or for other specified purposes.

I have spoken before in the House about the imbalance in the work done at home by both genders and have highlighted the work of the European Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality, which was published in November 2020 and pointed out that women across Europe did 13 hours more each week than men on unpaid care and housework. The committee's work also pointed out that the closure of schools, care centres and workplaces during the pandemic had increased the unequal distribution of unpaid domestic and care responsibilities within the home for women who, often in addition to balancing working from home, were left without sufficient support for child and elderly care, and that remote working was not a substitute for childcare.

I have also spoken about the urgent need to disrupt the cycle of gendered violence that our generation and every one that went before ours have experienced. The only way to interrupt the cycle for our children is to interrupt our cultural norms through a programme of relationship and sexual education that focuses from the earliest age on respect, consent, equality, personhood and boundaries. I note Deputy O'Donoghue's remarks on teaching children from the earliest age that they can do any job and the importance of mindsets. In many cases, though, these norms are coming from a cultural perception of women and men, so their disruption is important.

Deputy Cathal Crowe's contribution was interesting and important. He observed that the brilliant girls he had taught changed somewhat in their teenage years. They became less involved and outspoken. Of course they did. When boys or men speak over them, take credit for their ideas or sexualise them without their consent, when mass media tells them that they must look a particular way to be perceived as acceptable or successful, and when they must wear a skirt to school when I can choose to wear trousers in the Dáil, is that not continually ridiculous?

This is an important debate and I thank everyone who has contributed. I acknowledge my colleague, Deputy Higgins, and her work on women on corporate boards that was recommended by the assembly. Research published in the Financial Timesin August highlighted that, in the UK, there had been an increase via a voluntary effort to achieve a better gender balance on corporate boards, but the counterpoint was that much of that balance was achieved through the appointment of women as non-executive directors.

Approximately 90% were non-executive directors rather than the more influential and, indeed, higher paid executive directors, who tended to come from within the business. This debate is important because if you are a female aged 22 to 25 who has come out of school or college and you are entering a career for the first time, you do not expect that this is what is front of you. You do not expect that things could be different, or should be different, because of your gender when you have done just as well as males in school, college and everywhere else. Yet, you come to discover that the cultural norms are different, the expectations are different and the fact of having babies interrupts the opportunity to have a continued career and ensures you are perceived as different.

I never thought coming into Dáil Éireann that it would be the first time I would experience coming up against a gender wall. I was quite surprised by it, to look around and see how few women there were here. So many of the invitations I receive are to speak about being a woman in politics, the difficulty of being a woman in politics or what it is like for women in politics. I am never asked about anything else. I do not wish to complain about all of those things. I simply want to note that their very existence or the precepts behind the questions continue to other and make different women persons in politics from men persons in politics. Why am I or, say, Deputy Funchion not asked about the Government balance sheet, the separation of powers and a range of other issues? The invitations are continually about being a woman in politics. There is no question that we do not wish to pull up the ladder behind us. That is not it; of course not. I contribute to everything I am asked to do. I simply observe that every time that interview request comes in or the request to speak on gender issues comes in, for one, two, three or four hours I am taken away from being a woman person in politics who would like to be re-elected while the man person in politics has that one, two, three or four hours to spend responding to his constituents, getting through his call list, developing policy and legislation and preparing for media. It is simply an observation, but it is one that I think is important. I note Deputy Funchion is nodding. I thank her for her support because I am somewhat nervous even articulating it. I do not know why given that I am a Member of the House and should be entitled to say whatever it is I believe on behalf of the women I represent, whom I know agree with this point. Nevertheless here I am taking up that measure of space articulating an opinion that is somewhat contrary, both to the narrative generally and a feminist construction of what women might or should do in politics. I thank Deputy Funchion for nodding in support.

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