Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I would not underestimate the cultural handbrake that is also there. There is definitely a societal pressure, in particular on men, to get that fit of child rearing done and get back to work. That is the thinking on it. I do not subscribe to that view. I think that time you put into your child at home is incredibly valuable and, to speak to our earlier question, gives that best start and early start. We need to be serious about supporting the caring economy and that income replacement rate the Minister is talking about is also part of it. We have the twin pressures of, on the one hand, demographic challenges, where we know there will be an increased need for care in our society, and, on the other hand, the acceleration of digitalisation, where we know a lot of even what are currently white-collar jobs will be displaced by technology in the coming years and decades. We need to get serious about rewarding what was traditionally a female segment of the economy and which, for that reason, was undervalued. We need to get real about valuing the caring economy.

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