Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Once a year, on International Women's Day, we come in here to talk about the issues that face half of the population. We must recognise continually that we are failing as a society when we have to recognise that so many of our women find the rights for which they have struggled for so long have still to be achieved. A century ago, it was about the right to vote. We believe we have come such a long way since then but there is still so much to travel.

Reference was made to the gender pay gap. When I speak to many women in my constituency in professions dominated by women, I realise they are at a huge loss as to why they must struggle continually to achieve decent pay and conditions. I am thinking in particular about women in section 39 employment, which usually involves healthcare and social care. It is predominantly women in these sectors. Every day they are fighting to get decent salaries so they will be independent if, as is often the case, they find themselves without a partner, with a difficulty in life or on their own trying to raise children. All of these problems are in addition to the gender pay problem, and women continually find it is a struggle.

Every day of the week, Deputies raise issues concerning childcare, time off and other such matters. This indicates that we do not deal with them often enough. I fully respect Deputy Richmond's point that we should not be discussing these matters here for five minutes once a year. We need to take the initiative to make what is desired happen as quickly as possible.

The issues that have dominated for the past couple of weeks, particularly what happened Ashling Murphy and how it resulted in a focus on how women are so afraid in society, show that we have so much to do to protect women so they will have a fearless place in society. We have a lot to do to change men and their attitude regarding all this.

I am conscious of what is happening in Ukraine. In my community, I have been working with a family from Ukraine that has been bringing people over here. In the past week, it has brought 18 people connected to it here. All of them are women. In one case, there were two small girls and their mother, grandmother and great-grandmother — four generations fleeing from war. We should be very grateful that we are not in that position in this country. However, at the same time, we have an awfully long way to go to have equal status for women.

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