Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to speak on Second Stage of the Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023, which relates to women in the home and the operation of care. I thank the citizens' assembly for its great work and commitment.

I thank again all the NGOs that came to the committee to discuss this. It was an interesting committee. I enjoyed contributing to it. I also thank the chair of the committee, an Teachta Bacik.

When I first spoke about this Bill in the Dáil after the report from Catherine Day I said we all know that a woman's place is in the revolution. I was struck by the section of the Minister's opening speech about the 1,500 women who gathered at the Mansion House on 1 May 1937. I think of my paternal grandmother who was a woman of that revolution. I think of how, after the Civil War and the coming together after the parting of the ways, those women were effectively told "We will look after things from now on and you go on home and make the dinner". My paternal grandmother did not go home and make the dinner. She kept her job teaching in the school in County Kerry.

I welcome the removal of the outdated and sexist language about women in the home. I deeply regret we have not yet had that much-needed revolution in the provision of services in health, education, childcare, mental health, dental health and transport that would make care so much better and so much easier for the giver and the receiver alike. The idea of care in the home, in the family and in society could be revolutionised by easy access to a creche, a dentist, a psychotherapist, a psychiatrists, an assessment for a child with special needs and public transport that shows up on time to get people to work, school or college on time. I have concerns, as do many, about what is being proposed in addressing the constitutional treatment of care. The NGOs we engaged with highlight the difference between what is proposed by the Government and what was presented to them by the citizens' assembly in their engagement with us on the gender equality committee. We agreed that the insertion of Article 42B is largely symbolic. As on the amendment on the family, there is the issue of weakness of language. It is in this language that the Government is happy to "strive" to support care within the home and the wider community. This striving is what concerns me.

"Strive" does not reflect the 81% of the citizens' assembly members who preferred the word "oblige". I also favour the word "oblige" because "strive" is weak and contains room for excuses. It seems like a get-out clause for Ministers, as though to say we did not manage it but we really strived for it. We need to be clear here that what is required is provision of support to individuals, family and community by obligation. Obligation and being obliged puts the needs of the public first. Mere striving puts the political needs of the Government first. The results of obligation can be measured by whether the supports are there or not. The public would have recourse to the courts to decide whether or not those obligations were being met according to threshold norms. Striving feels like excusing. It is the language of how long is a piece of string or rain is wet. I am worried it is a deliberate move by the Government that is shallow and driven by popularity, optics, headlines and soundbites. It allows the Government to look like it is making real commitments without obliging it to do anything at all. The fact that it has opted to omit the requirement to take reasonable measures and other forms of care in the wider community shows its lack of seriousness. It seems the Minister went for political ease and absolution over civic and constitutional care and obligation. It is cosmetic. Apart from failing to provide services to make care really work there was no recognition of the pressure on women in their careers given that they perform an additional 38 hours of unpaid work per week.

I refer to three different groups of women I deal with at the moment in north Kildare who do the work of caring in the home and also paid work outside the home. One is a group of highly-qualified women who have arrived at board level but due to the lack of busanna scoileanna to get their children to school they are now looking at working part time. The second group is a group of highly qualified women who work in teaching and healthcare but who, through lack of available and affordable childcare, are looking at having to quit work after their maternity leave ends. They simply cannot get a creche. The third group comprises the mothers of those women, women who themselves work in the home by tradition or by choice because at one time they could afford to pay a mortgage on one salary. We all know that those days are gone due to the price of housing. They got in touch with me in sheer disbelief and horror that going into 2024 their daughters are going to have to diminish their careers because their children cannot get a bus to school. It is as crazy and simple as that. They think they have to quit their work. The Government seems like angels dancing on the head of a pin around wording that neither obliges it nor delivers for people, wording that puts women in a poor second place while the Government merely strives, doing its best.

We will be putting forward amendments and we hope they will be taken seriously because we were not in favour of this going ahead without proper engagement and pre-legislative scrutiny at committee. I hope we can work together on this and make sure that it passes. Definitely it is time this was removed from our Constitution.

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