Kevin Humphreys (Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is International Women's Day and there are many "why" questions. Why is there still such a large pay gap between men and women for carrying out the same work? The last real progress made was when Proinsias de Rossa introduced legislation on equal pay for equal work. At that time, it was resisted by many in society. Why did the Labour Party have to have its policy of gender quotas to ensure that women had an opportunity to run in elections? That legislation was brought in during the last Government when we were in coalition with Fine Gael and it has worked to a degree. We have seen many more women elected with very high quality and standards. They should have been elected without gender quotas. Why did we need to introduce that legislation in Ireland? Why did my party have to fight for two decades for the X case legislation? We got that legislation through with great difficulty during the last term in government. Why did we have such a regressive amendment to the Constitution in 1983? We are still fighting to repeal the eighth amendment, which was an amendment put down that did not trust women. I am probably one of the few people in the House who fought and canvassed in that referendum campaign against the amendment.