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

There are a lot of amendments, so I will be speaking in respect of them.

I welcome this and any Bill that helps to improve situations for workers, employers and families. It has many benefits in transposing into Irish law, the European directive of 2019 on work-life balance for parents and carers. However, many of the flaws identified at the pre-legislative scrutiny stage remain and undermine the overall impact of the law. It is good to highlight the headline issues but when we consider the details, there are some flaws and arbitrary restrictions. The core economic principle of social democracy is that state intervention is warranted and necessary to fix market failures. We believe in sensible and proportionate policies that reflect the reality of life for most people. At some stage in our lives, we all have caring duties. Most obviously, parents need flexibility to care for children, especially when they are unwell. Older parents, other relatives and friends can also need support at different times. That is a social reality. This is life and we need our laws to reflect these complexities.

Our current legislation is weak in some ways on workers' rights and that affects family life and especially impacts on women. As of 2020, Irish women's employment is at 72.2% compared with Irish men's employment at 85.3%. We have a gap of approximately 13%, placing us above the European average of 11% and we are especially out of line with comparable countries such as Portugal at 5% or Denmark at 8%. Information from EUROSTAT on gender equality is even more significant. It shows that caring responsibilities are the main reason women are not part of the labour force. Research by the ESRI and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission revealed that 45% of women and 29% of men provide care for others on a daily basis in Ireland. They also discussed that when comparing levels of unpaid work across the EU, Ireland had the third highest weekly hours of unpaid work for both men and women. The report states that this is likely to reflect high demand for caring in Ireland with relatively low State involvement in support for caring. I raised this larger point on International Women's Day. Ireland's social and healthcare system is based on the assumption that there is a stay-at-home parent or carer who is usually a woman. Childcare costs remain disgracefully high. Parents have to provide the vast majority of, if not all, the care and developmental interventions for children with disabilities. If there is any hope of keeping older parents with an illness or additional needs in their homes, they must have family carers. Furthermore, in its pre-legislative scrutiny report, the Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth recommended that the initiatives proposed under this Bill must be met with improvements in the provision of accessible and affordable childcare and other care services.

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