Dáil debates

Wednesday, 8 March 2023

International Women's Day: Statements

 

2:22 pm

Photo of Claire KerraneClaire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Today is not only an opportunity to acknowledge the many inequalities that continue to exist for women in Ireland in 2023, but to commit to ending those inequalities. On days like today, I think in particular of places where women really come to the fore in our State. One example in this regard is caring. I am thinking here of family carers, home care workers and lone parents, who are predominately women. We have so much to do to support all of those women in the caring that they provide day in and day out, sometimes 24-7 in their own homes. We need to see better pay, terms and conditions for our home care workers to ensure that we have enough of them, and to end the recruitment and retention crisis that exists. We need a better deal for them. We need to support lone parents who continue to live in deep poverty, deprivation and at risk of poverty. We saw the Survey on Income and Living Conditions, SILC, data just two weeks ago, showing us that 43% of lone-parent families experience deprivation. This means that week to week they fail and struggle to meet the daily basics in their lives for them and their children. That is something that should be a matter of great shame to this Government. Likewise, family carers still cannot get access to a State pension at 66. They get reduced pensions or they have to look for a means-tested pension. It is not good enough and we need to move to support all of those women to the fore, particularly when it comes to caring.

On a positive note, today is also a day to acknowledge the many women in our lives who make them so wonderful. Primarily, these are the women who rear us and shape us to become the women we are today. I think in particular of my mother and of working mothers who sacrifice so much to get their children to where they are and the huge sacrifices they make. I think also of my nanny, who will shortly turn 91, and the huge hardship that her generation faced in rearing families to get them to where they are today.

It is important to pay tribute to those women in our lives today.

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