Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I want to begin by welcoming all present for our debate on the joint committee's report Unfinished Democracy: Achieving Gender Equality. As both Deputies have already described, the overarching goal of the report is to achieve gender equality within our society by means of a variety of targeted actions. That goal is also a key tenet of my Department's mission. This is outlined in our stated of strategy of working towards "a fair and inclusive society, where everyone can reach their full potential". In particular, empowering women and girls is a key priority of Ireland's domestic and foreign policy, with the aim of creating a fairer and more sustainable society.

Like Deputy Cronin, I extend my sincere thanks to Deputy Bacik, the Cathaoirleach of the Joint Committee on Gender Equality, and, indeed, to her fellow members of the committee, for providing their valuable expertise to deliver this report, which, as stated, contains 205 actions and which has provided Government with a sharp focus on specific measures that we must achieve to bring about gender equality.

I also take this opportunity to thank Dr. Catherine Day, the Chair of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality, and all the members of that assembly for their delivery of key recommendations, which were expanded upon by the joint committee.

As the joint committee's report correctly outlines, "until gender equality is achieved, democracy is unfinished". That is why this Government is committed to tackling inequalities wherever they appear in our society. Of the 205 actions contained in the report, I am proud to say that 190 have either been completed or are in progress. Today, I would like to highlight just some of the concrete steps that have been taken in response to the recommendations and to ensure their implementation.

As Deputies will be aware and has been spoken about, a key recommendation of both the citizens’ assembly and the joint committee was to amend the Constitution to address the wording of Article 41. Government has considered these recommendations for constitutional change extremely carefully over a nine-month period, and we brought forward legislation enabling the holding of two referendums. If enacted, these will amend Article 41 of the Constitution to provide for a wider concept of family, and remove the exclusion of one-parent families and of unmarried couples living together with any children they have from the definition of the family in the Constitution. The referendums will also provide for the deletion of Article 41.2 of the Constitution and the outdated language that it contains, and the insertion of the new Article 42B, which recognises the importance of care and the different types of care within families and which will place an obligation on the State to support people in this regard.

The Electoral Commission has commenced its public information campaign. Printed material will be distributed to 1.8 million households. Ballot papers and polling cards have been printed. Some people in embassies around the world have already cast their votes in order to support that. As we know, the vote to take place next Friday, 8 March. I might come back to the referendums later.

I would like to set out the practical steps the Government has taken to address the other equally significant recommendations that the Deputies' committee brought forward. I will take this opportunity to focus on many of the themes that both Deputy Bacik and Deputy Cronin have honed in on.

In terms of the committee's report and setting out comprehensive steps to address domestic, sexual and gender-based violence in Ireland, I was pleased last Friday to attend the launch of Cuan, the new DSGBV agency. I was involved in the programme for Government negotiations on the section on domestic violence and it was very much informed by engagement I had had with the DSGBV NGO sector over a number of years where its key concern was responsibility is fragmented. There is a bit in Tusla, a bit in my Department, a good bit in the Department of Justice and a large chunk in the Department of Health. There is also a bit in the Department of housing. It is all over the place. We have brought it all together. We listened to the sector because we put into the programme for Government an intention to conduct an audit and listen to the sector, and we did. I have to say the sector, certainly, those who I spoke to on Friday, recognises what Government and the Minister, Deputy McEntee, have done. Cuan's functions will include: the responsibility for co-ordinating and overseeing all actions set out in the third national strategy on the DSGBV - another point coming from the report that the committee brings forward; delivering key services to victims of domestic violence; and leading on an awareness-raising campaign, which was also set out within the committee's report.

In the context of another key action under the third national strategy, the Online Safety and Media Regulations Act was enacted in December 2022 and the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Human Trafficking) Bill passed Committee Stage in the Dáil last December.

While we recognise that persons, irrespective of gender, can be victims of DSGBV, we also recognise that a disproportionate number of victims are women or girls. My Department introduced domestic violence leave in November 2023. Ireland becomes one of the first countries in Europe to provide for paid leave for victims of domestic violence. Five days' leave per year came in from November 2023. This was another programme for Government commitment and also a commitment set out in the third national strategy. Employees who are experiencing domestic violence can now access five days' paid leave to help them access necessary supports. I hope this leave has already helped women, and, indeed, men, who are experiencing domestic violence to allow them to remain in employment and achieve their full potential because we recognise that those who are victims of domestic violence are also at a greater risk of poverty and supporting them to be able to maintain their income while they are addressing the consequences of the violence they have suffered is particularly important.

In terms of other measures Government has taken to promote gender equality in the workplace, the gender pay gap is a key measure of women's economic empowerment. This gap has decreased significantly in recent years in Ireland. It was 14.4% in 2017. It was 9.6% in 2022. In order to increase the diminishment of the gap, in 2022, my Department introduced gender pay gap reporting following the passage of legislation. That now requires organisations to report on their gender pay gap across a range of metrics, and also mandates them to set out how their will remove the gender pay gap within their organisation. In 2022, organisations with over 250 employees had to undertake reporting. That has now been extended to organisations with over 150 employees. My Department is bringing forward a centralised reporting system based on a website where everyone will be able to compare and see what is the gender pay gap of their organisation. I am proud to say my Department has a gender pay gap in favour of women because of the large number of women in high and management roles across the Department.

We have also expanded the family leave entitlement.

From August of this year, paid parent's leave will increase from seven weeks to nine weeks per parent per child. That is very significant. When I entered office, parent's leave was two weeks per parent per child. We will have increased it by seven weeks per parent per child in the lifetime of the Government. It is especially important in supporting dads who wish to undertake a caring role, particularly in the first two years of their child's life. We have also introduced the right to request flexible and remote working, as part of the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023. Both of those rights will be commenced in the next number of weeks.

Both Deputies spoke about the importance of care and how fundamental it is within our society. We must acknowledge that women remain disproportionately responsible for unpaid care work, as Deputy Cronin mentioned. In the workplace, too, women are over-represented in lower-paid roles in the care sector. That is why we have taken steps to advance recognition of care and social protection in Ireland. Major reform has been introduced to the national childcare scheme, which is improving the affordability of early learning care and school-age childcare for families. Since I became Minister, there has been a 70% increase in the budget for childcare. This year, we will spend €1.1 billion on that provision. When I entered office, the expenditure was €638 million. This has had the impact of significantly decreasing the cost of childcare for parents, which we were able to reduce by 25% in January last year. The second 25% cut that will kick in from September this year means we will achieve the goal I set out of halving childcare costs for parents in the lifetime of the Government.

We recognise that the vast majority of childcare professionals are women. We also recognise that they are underpaid. Reference was made to the financial lack of value that is placed on a lot of care roles in Irish society. Through a joint labour committee and an employment regulation order in September 2022, 70% of childcare professionals saw a pay increase, many of them for the first time. This was the first statutory pay agreement for childcare professionals. Our work in this area is not done. I am committed to making more progress to ensure skilled and dedicated early years educators are paid their worth and can remain in the sector.

Allowances for carers have continued to increase. From January this year, there has been an increase in weekly social welfare payments, with the maximum rates of carer's allowance and carer's benefit also increasing. In addition, the income disregard for carer's allowance for both couples and single carers has increased under the most recent budget.

Further to recommendations by the joint Oireachtas committee regarding women in unpaid and lower-paid caring roles and the gender pension gap that results from this, the pension auto-enrolment scheme will be introduced in the second half of this year. The State pension system also gives significant recognition to those whose work history includes an extended period of time outside the paid workplace through measures such as the awarding of PRSI credits, the application of the homemaker’s scheme and the application of home care periods. Since January, the contributory State pension scheme recognises caring periods of up to 20 years outside of paid employment.

While steps have been taken to improve equality for women with caring responsibilities in the home, I am happy to report that key progress has also been made to empower women of diverse backgrounds to participate in politics, leadership and public life, at all levels of decision-making. In this regard, the statutory minimum gender quota for men and women candidates from political parties standing for election increased from 30% to 40% in February last year. If this quota is not met, parties will lose 50% of their annual State funding.

The programme for Government also acknowledges the need for greater diversity and gender equality. It committed the Government to empower local authorities to encourage an improved gender and ethnic mix in local elections. In December 2022, statutory maternity leave for councillors was introduced for the first time. I have outlined my commitment to introducing practical and effective maternity leave for Members of the Oireachtas. Legislative proposals to provide for this leave are currently being developed and will be brought forward in the equality amendment Bill I hope to present for pre-legislative scrutiny in the near future.

In a similar vein, the joint Oireachtas committee report highlighted a range of actions to ensure a variety of career paths are open to all students regardless of gender. Gender-neutral career information must be provided to all students and must never focus on what men or women are expected to do. The professional development service for teachers guidance teams have increased awareness of gender-neutral career paths by, for example, putting a spotlight on women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM, and ensuring unconscious biases are challenged through a range of workshops, webinars and newsletters. I am also pleased to report that in April 2022, the Minister, Deputy Harris, announced a gender-based bursary as part of the action plan for apprenticeships. Worth €2,666, it is hoped the bursary will encourage more women to take on a trade or craft.

A key aspect of providing equal access to education for all is the elimination of harmful gender norms and stereotypes. In December 2022, the Department of Education published Cineáltas, its action plan on bullying, which acknowledges that a person's likelihood of experiencing bullying can be linked to issues like gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or other characteristics. The plan contains a broad range of actions to prevent and address bullying.

I reaffirm our commitment to advancing gender equality through law and policy. As Ireland's equality legislation was drafted almost 20 years ago, a review of that legislation, including the operation of the Equal Status Acts and the Employment Equality Acts, was timely. We undertook that review and, as I said, it is anticipated that legislative proposals arising from it will be brought forward in the coming weeks.

Work to develop a national equality data strategy, led by the Central Statistics Office, with support from my Department, is well advanced, and will be ready for publication in the coming months. It will have key benefits in terms of understanding the gender, racial and religious impacts of laws and the impacts on persons with disabilities. It is hoped the strategy will allow for a greater analysis of where needs are more acute and measurement of the impact of current interventions.

I take this opportunity to speak about the two referendums we will be voting on next Friday. Deputy Bacik referred to the concept of “yes-yes, and”. Whatever amount of time I have left in this role, which includes significant responsibility for caring roles, that certainly is the approach I will be taking. The Deputy spoke about the referendum to amend Article 41 and extend the vital constitutional recognition of the family. Deputy Cronin spoke about the reference in the Proclamation to men and women. It also talks about cherishing all the children of the nation equally. I do not believe we can say we are doing that when the family our Constitution recognises is only the family based on marriage and not the 150,000 cohabiting couples who live together and provide such an important foundation to our country and the thousands of one-parent families who also provide that foundation. Those families are omitted from the core document that is our Constitution.

Deputy Bacik spoke about some of the red herrings that have come up during the referendum campaign. The fundamental question I would like answered by those who are advocating a "No" vote on the thirty-ninth amendment is this: why we should maintain the exclusion of one-parent families and loving cohabiting couples and any children they might have from the constitutional definition of the family? That is ultimately the question that is before the people tomorrow week in the referendum on the thirty-ninth amendment. It is not about succession because that will not be impacted. It is not about taxation because that will not be impacted. It is not about the various other elements that have been raised. It is about whether we wish to maintain an exclusion of tens of thousands of families from our Constitution. I believe the vast majority of Irish people will say, "Yes, we want to include these families within the constitutional definition".

On the referendum to delete Article 41.2, Deputy Bacik spoke about the outdated language it contains. I know that not everyone sees it as sexist. I see as sexist the idea of women's duties in the home. The Deputy omitted to refer to what I think is the worst word in the article, which is "neglect" in reference to a woman's duties in the home. That is what is contained in the Constitution - a reference to the neglect of a mother's duties in the home.

For me and many in the country, the word "neglect" speaks to a level of judgment about a woman working outside the home.

I will restate something. I remember being taught the Constitution in first year law. When our lecturer read out these provisions, there were gasps around the room. Many people do not have the time to go through our Constitution and know what it says. Whenever I knock on doors during this campaign and meet a one-parent family, that parent is often shocked to realise that one-parent families do not have constitutional status. People do not realise there is an outdated and value-laden statement of neglect of a mother’s duties within the home. We have an opportunity to replace it with something meaningful, that being, a recognition of the care of persons with disabilities, which we discussed in detail, and the care provided by parents. I mean mams and dads, because it is important the role of fathers, brothers and husbands in care is acknowledged in our Constitution as well.

Regarding the idea of “yes-yes, and”, I am conscious, particularly in the sphere of disability, that some advocacy groups have raised concerns. One of the key “ands” that I will look to advance whatever the outcome of the referendums next week is the ratification of the optional protocol. The Minister, Deputy Donohoe, and I spoke about this in the Chamber on Wednesday. We are scoping a clear pathway towards identifying the domestic legislation that is a barrier to ratification. Once that work is done, we will bring together an interdepartmental group involving the Departments where that legislation sits and set out a clear pathway to amending it and bringing ourselves into a position where we can sign up to the optional protocol, further demonstrating that we sign up to the ideas in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

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