Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish everybody a happy International Women's Day across the House, including Members, staff and former Members. We all share the solidarity we want to send to the hundreds of thousands of women and girls fleeing Ukraine, and many who have stayed behind and are actively involved in resisting the Russian invasion. I offer my unwavering solidarity at this deeply distressing time. We all recognise the importance of sovereignty and the right to self-determination. I hope the compassion rightly shown across the EU for Ukraine is shown to women throughout the world. Some 62 million people are fleeing conflict as we speak. Other women have been displaced.

I will come back to women in our country. They have a right to live without fear but, unfortunately, many women will go to bed tonight afraid they will not wake up in the morning and of what will happen to them and their children overnight. Some of it is as simple as not having anywhere to go and not having an alternative housing arrangement. Many women have told me in recent weeks that they want to go, need to go and are in a dangerous place, but they do not want to be homeless. That is the dilemma women throughout this country face. Words are fine but, as my colleague Deputy Funchion said, we must do something about it as a matter of urgency.

I remember carers today. We rightly thank them, but when the opportunity came to give them the Covid bonus, we turned our backs on family carers again. That is not good enough. Too often we pay lip service but do not follow it up. We know family carers save us about €20 billion per year by the work they do. By giving their time to care for a loved one, they keep hospital beds free for others and reduce the need for State-funded care facilities. They have suffered during Covid and have not had any respite, yet we turn our backs and refuse them the Covid payment. We all need to question ourselves in terms of the decisions made around the distribution of wealth in this country. We are one of the wealthiest countries in the world. We need to show it and to share it.

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