Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Senator Hoey raised the issue of the gender pay gap and I would like to extend that conversation. One of my colleagues on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council yesterday passed a motion to ask the Government and the Minister to extend maternity and paternity leave to councillors. As more than three quarters of our councillors are men, it is time to take stock and look at the gender issue not only as it relates to Senators and Deputies. We have all spoken about that issue and we have also all heard Deputies mention, on many occasions, the problem of not receiving maternity leave. Deputies, however, earn more than €92,000 and receive up to €25,000 in expenses. A councillor earns €17,000 and receives €2,500 in expenses which cannot be used for childcare. This shows how difficult it is for women to get involved at the lowest levels of political life. An awful lot of the nearly one quarter of councillors who are women are not mothers. When I joined the council, there were other women on it but none of them were mothers. When women who are mothers are not involved in politics, we do not have people representing their point of view, which is also that of children. We therefore also see children not being represented to the fullest extent. Mothers know what it is like to look for a comfortable park bench on which to feed a child, to not have any active birth centres in Ireland, to have very little access to facilities for home births and to only have a milk bank in the North of Ireland and none in the South. All of us, but particularly those of us who feel the impact of them, can raise these issues. I ask the Leader to write to the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, to ask him to extend maternity and paternity rights to councillors.