Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach and wish her and all female Members of this House a happy International Women's Day. I wish a happy International Women's Day to my wife Maeve, my mother Irene, my little girl Eve, who is at home, my sisters and especially to Mary and Sonia who are in my office. They tell me they always have the television on the Dáil channel. I do not fully believe them, but they are mighty workers. They do much in the constituency of Clare to support and help vulnerable, marginalised people and I greatly appreciate what they do. I will also pay tribute to our Leas-Cheann Comhairle who is in the Chamber this afternoon. We are proud of the role she has in these Houses and of the job she does. She probably will not hear me now. There has been some speculation in the bar some evenings that she might be a candidate for the Áras next time around. Who knows? I wish everyone a Happy International Women's Day.

I want to correct the Dáíl record. Today, 8 March, might be International Women's Day but the Dáil record lasts in perpetuity and it must be accurate. I want to correct something Deputy Gould said a moment ago. Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, Countess Markiewicz and Margaret Pearse were all founding members and matriarchs of the Fianna Fáil Party. They were fantastic women. I would not dispute anything he said about their attributes, their wonderful CVs and all they did for the republican movement in Ireland, but it must be stated on the record - as a few people try to rewrite history every day for their own gain - that those women were founding members of Fianna Fáil. We on the Fianna Fáíl side of this House are hugely proud of the role they played in the past and of the legacy they left that we continue to espouse.

I will touch on a few matters in my speech, the first of which is women in sport. I recognise it is an aim and objective of the current programme for Government. In his tenure as Minister of State with responsibility for sport, Deputy Chambers, doggedly pursued the requirement for sporting bodies to have up to 40% of their board populated by female representatives. I am glad he led that but much more needs to happen. I was a primary school teacher before becoming a Deputy and I saw many fabulous athletes wearing the blue and white of Parteen. A few years later when they reached the adolescent or teenage years I would bump into them in the local shop and ask how the gaelic football or camogie was going only to hear they had packed it in and that their boots were hanging in the attic. The strategy for female participation in sport should not always be focused on the top end, preparing our Olympians, county level teams and international teams. It must start with the age cohort from 11 to 16 years old who are every bit as good as the boys and give it socks on the sports pitch.

Yet there is something about the adolescent teenage years that means they withdraw from it and opt out of sports. Sport is fabulous for many reasons. Even from a health point of view alone, participation should be encouraged.

With regard to women in agriculture, earlier I was at a meeting with the IFA in the audiovisual room. It is a sector where we see a lack of women. The more that can be done by the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy McConalogue, in this regard, the better.

Some Members addressed the issue of lone parents. It is a recurring theme in my office. I am sure most Deputies can relate to it. Not a week goes by without a single mother coming to my office to say she is struggling to make the rent, pay various contributions in school, buy schoolbooks and clothe her children. That is before we get to bills and keeping a car on the road. It is simply too much for many people, and they are struggling. We need to have an honest debate - there has not been such a debate for a long time - on maintenance payments in circumstances where families are estranged. There is also the male side of it. Then often tell me they cannot get to see their children any more because they have fallen behind in their payments. The children are used in the middle and everyone loses. The State needs to represent women better in this scenario. It must also ensure that fathers are not estranged from their children. It is a debate that needs to happen. We have citizens' assemblies and we do work on many issues. The ramifications of family separation, in particular for young people, is something we need to look at.

I want to address the war situation in Ukraine. A man living just a few kilometres across the city, Ambassador Filatov, has some cheek to still be here in Ireland. We need to call this out more and more in the Houses. The ambassador represents a Government, and I am not saying the Russian people because there are many fine Russian people who are standing up against the Government of their country. The current Russian Government is a tool of thuggery. This morning, many media outlets put up fabulous photos of Ukrainian women in their military uniforms on the front line in the Donbas region. They are fighting for and defending their country. Ambassador Filatov needs to be aware of where his army and the Wagner Group are at this time. We have all seen footage of them going into the battlefield holding sledge-hammers and shovels with which to bash in people's heads. The ambassador is not welcome in Dublin any more. Governments have sat back a lot from this over the past ten or 11 months. It is time to say that he is not welcome any more. Blacklist or no blacklist, he is not welcome. There should be no red carpet for a representative of a country that has invaded another country and that is acting in a thuggish manner. Now the war crimes are not even happening subversively, they are happening openly.

I echo what Deputy McGuinness said about MABS. The dedicated mortgage adviser teams we have in these offices are keeping people in homes. The funding for it will expire very shortly. We need to ensure it continues.

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