Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

It is quite shocking that we are only introducing maternity leave for politicians in 2022 and it is only at local level. We still need to address Senators and Deputies. Earlier today, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, commended this country on our progress in facilitating women to advance in employment. Unfortunately, looking around the room, she could not the same of our public representation. Women make up less than a quarter of the Deputies in the Dáil and less than a quarter of the councillors on local authorities across the country.

If we want to increase the number of women in politics, we need to identify the barriers to female participation and work to remove them. The lack of any maternity or paternity provisions for public representatives is one very glaringly obvious barrier. It denies the country strong female political candidates because many of them feel unable to progress a career in politics due to the structural barriers in their way. I welcome the Bill and the opportunity to discuss it. As the Minister of State is aware, I progressed a Private Members' Bill which sought to bring in many of the changes that will be made possible by this legislation.

The Bill before us brings some necessary reforms but it falls short of what is required to make being a public representative more accessible not only to women but to people from minority groups and people with disabilities. This morning at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Disability Matters, we discussed the many barriers blocking disabled people from running for election. These include the extra costs of disability, the unavailability of Irish Sign Language interpreters or facilities, the major issue of a lack of personal assistants and inaccessible meeting venues, information and transport. The list goes on. The Bill is a wasted opportunity to bring in far-reaching reforms in advance of the 2024 elections.

The Government's report on reforms for local authority elected members, the Moorhead report, has numerous recommendations which could have been included in the Bill. The Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality also made recommendations that could have been incorporated into the Bill. In essence, the Bill addresses the issue around seeking maternity leave and providing for a person to be temporarily co-opted. This is welcome but in terms of leave, the Bill does less than what I proposed in my Bill. That the Government, with the resources available to it, its working group and headline grabbing press releases, is doing less than what I was able to do speaks volumes about the level of ambition.

The changes that allow a councillor to avail of maternity leave are obviously very welcome. Under the 2001 Act, a councillor would have to seek permission to go on leave for illness or a good faith reason. This is clearly unacceptable and does not even acknowledge the fact that a councillor may ever seek maternity leave. The Bill addresses this and essentially treats the councillor as an employee for the purposes of entitlement to maternity leave. However, the proposals stop there, whereas my Bill permitted councillors to apply for leave under the same conditions as local authority staff for maternity, adoptive and parental leave.

It is both disappointing and short-sighted that the Bill does not include provision for adoptive and parental leave. Adoptive leave gives 24 weeks' leave to one parent of the adopting couple or a parent who is adopting alone, while parental leave allows parents to take up to 26 weeks' unpaid leave to spend time looking after their children who are under 12. Both of these are standard leave arrangements that are open to workers but not councillors. These types of leave not only recognise the diversity of family life and the issues that may unfortunately arise, but they are also gender neutral.

The Bill does nothing for partners. Any recognition of the needs of women councillors is great, especially if it facilitates more women entering local politics, however, the Bill reinforces the role of women as the primary care giver. The types of leave men can apply for are excluded and this does not send out the right message.

Any councillor needing leave for adoption or caring for a seriously ill child will have to seek permission for it and will not be entitled to the co-opted replacement. The Bill is supposed to be about being family friendly and encouraging more people to enter politics. In that context, these are glaring omissions. This is made worse by the fact that I was able to include these provisions in my Bill. For the benefit of those watching this debate, my Bill was developed by Dr. Richard Scriven, my parliamentary assistant, and me together with the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers, which was probably fewer than ten people, and we were able to come up with more wide-ranging reforms than in the Government's Bill. I ask the Minister of State to see how he can include measures for adoptive and parental leave.

We know councillors will be entitled to maternity benefit by virtue of their social protection classification. However, in the case that an individual is solely or primarily employed is as a councillor, will the local authorities be directed to treat the individual the same as employees, by topping up the payment to match the income? I realise issue is under the remit of the Department of Social Protection, but it interacts with the Bill and it would be useful to obtain clarification on this matter.

The measures in section 2, enabling co-option, is very welcome and brings public representation in line with other forms of work where temporary replacements are a standard practice, however, there are some issues with the suggested process. Under the Bill, councillors will have very little say over who will be co-opted in their place. Their political party, if they belong to one, and fellow councillors would instead decide that. In its pre-legislative scrutiny report, the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage recommended that the person going on leave would have "... greater control over the decision of their substitute ... [this may include] the ratification of a substitute not being subject to a vote of the full Council". It also stated this "... may create stressful situations for the elected member while on maternity or illness leave, should their temporary substitute be a direct competitor, for example." This is a reality in political party branches that must be acknowledged. Unfortunately, parties often feature in the news for allegations of bullying. The Minister of State may be familiar with an example from my constituency of at least one Fine Gael councillor leaving the party because of bullying. In this context, there needs to be greater safeguards to protect the preferences of the person seeking leave. We all know the amount of personal energy and time that goes into securing a seat - anyone elected has the right to have his or her position respected.

Separately, the housing committee also points out that the co-option process needs to remain optional, and if a person decides not to avail of it, the individual should be able to vote remotely. The pandemic showed how it is possible to have remote meetings. That provision should not be an issue to implement at local authority level, although it would be difficult in the Dáil or the Seanad.

There are issues that need to be addressed in the Bill and I would encourage the Minister of State to look at the specifics in the pre-legislative scrutiny report, as well as the options for enabling elected members to avail of adoptive and parental leave. The Moorhead report also contains recommendations on childcare that could have been include in the Bill. The lack of childcare facilities available to councillors is noted in the report. Reference is made to a parenting, or caring, support group being established in local authorities. The group will examine the issues arising in parental-caring support, family-friendly measures should be endorsed by councils and a council policy should be drafted accordingly. I encourage the Minister of State to look at how he can introduce regulations around the provision of childcare by local authorities. Deputy Bacik talked about how much she appreciated the childcare facilities in the Oireachtas.

More broadly, there is a need to reform our systems to encourage and enable more women, disabled people and people from minority backgrounds to run for election. The Bill is too limited in its current form. If the Minister of State relies on other legislation to bring in changes, we all know that will be years away. This means the chance to encourage greater diversity in the 2024 local elections will be missed and, realistically, we are looking at the 2029 elections, which is unacceptable.

The Bill targets local government, but it obviously raises questions about national government. The average percentage of women in parliaments in the OECD is 31.6%. Ireland is almost 10% under that level and we are even further behind some of our European neighbours. The rate is almost 40% in France and almost 50% in Sweden.

Deputies are in a situation similar to councillors in that those seeking maternity leave are basically excused for six months with no provision for remote participation. While I recognise that a Private Members' Bill is being tabled on the matter, it is something that dovetails with this legislation. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, has provided leadership on this issue, but as she begins her second leave, what material difference is there? Is she being accommodated? Yes, but the system itself is not designed, even in the slightest way, to support her or anybody else in the same situation. The Forum on a Family Friendly and Inclusive Parliament, established by the Ceann Comhairle, examined these and related issues. We have a list of recommendations, some of which require Government action, such as a referendum to address remote working and proxy voting.

We must also look at addressing the long, late and unpredictable sitting times. This is in no way conducive to a health family life not only for elected members, but also for the Oireachtas staff. Using this evening's debate as an example, as a Deputy from a rural area, I will not get home until after midnight. It is ironic that this Bill was scheduled during the late Thursday-evening slot. The same was the case for a recent disability committee debate, which has a predominantly female membership, and statements on International Women's Day were taken during the late Thursday-evening slot. This means many Members do not get home until after midnight.

While the Bill is focused on one thing, which is welcome, it raises many more issues that are not being progressed. While little of this is directly under the Minister of State's responsibility, he is part of a government that has the capacity to bring in many of the identified and necessary changes. That is if he is serious about a more inclusive and family-friendly Dáil.

I remember, just after the election, when I started working on legislation for maternity and paternity provisions for elected members, I was told I should focus more on issues that affect ordinary people not politicians. I want to make it clear that having more women at decision making tables is absolutely crucial for better decision making for ordinary people. One does not have to look very far to see the fallout from the consistent absence of women at such tables. The key is in the word "representative". More than 50% of the population is not adequately represented in our Parliament. We are ranked 97th in the world for the percentage of women in the national parliament. By way of a really depressing example, there is only one female Deputy in all of Cork. The largest county in the country has one woman representative. Cork actually has six times more "Michaels" than women representing it. Michaels are, literally, six times more represented than women in Cork. We need more women in politics. Another example is that currently there are no women Deputies on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine. We all know that one of the biggest barriers to women in politics in Ireland is the selection of candidates, which comes down to political parties. There was a recent protest outside Leinster House, I think it was on 50:50 representation by 2050. I am a member of the only political party in the country that has reached and surpassed that target. There are more female Deputies in the Social Democrats than male. We have to look at this and ask why that is the case. We are not entirely sure. Perhaps part of it is because there are two female leaders. Crucially, it is because the party is so new. It is six years old. I am not pointing fingers at particular political parties, but where there is an old institution, there tends to be an institutional aversion to change. This is seen time and again when it comes to elections. Even with a quota, political parties will say they will put a certain person in the ticket to meet the quota, but they are blatantly there to sweep up votes in a different part of the constituency for the chosen male candidate, who is supposed to get the seat. It needs to change within the parties. Legislative measures and gender quotas will help, but until political parties provide a more welcoming face for women, we will not see the kind of equality and participation that we desperately need.

See this speech in context