Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Women are familiar with that situation. I am on a committee as well as in the Seanad Chamber.

Today, I wish to raise access to justice, in particular for women. We have good laws, but they are not enforced or people do not have the resources to access justice to see them enforced. I wish to raise two barriers that prevent women accessing justice. The first relates to the housing assistance payment, HAP, and accessing free legal aid. The problem is that HAP counts towards income when calculating eligibility for civil legal aid. That does not make sense because HAP and homeless HAP are never paid to the tenant, they are paid directly to the landlord. This is especially an issue for women accessing justice since the majority of people in receipt of HAP are women, as are the majority of single-parent households. It is especially relevant for those who have fled from domestic violence situations who are unable to take proceedings for maintenance or to defend applications for access to children. People, mostly women, are being denied access to the courts every day as a result of this discriminatory interpretation of the law. At present, two individuals with the same income are treated differently when it comes to applying for civil legal aid.

Another issue is that women are not able to access free legal aid when they take equality cases to the Workplace Relations Commission. Speaking in today's edition of The Irish Times, Eilis Barry, chief executive of the Free Legal Advice Centres, FLAC, said that fact almost certainly meant many employment discrimination or sexual harassment cases were simply not being taken, although there could be a raft of cases out there. It is not because there has not been a breach of law or because the case is not strong enough, rather, it is because the victims do not have the resources to get representation. Technically, victims have the opportunity to represent themselves but here too there is more systemic injustice because in addition to being less well-off in monetary terms, people on lower incomes face greater levels of time poverty. This is especially true for women who take on more care work, so even if they wanted to represent themselves, women are at a disadvantage. This puts workers in the lowest-paid jobs in a vulnerable position. During the pandemic we saw displays of solidarity with front-line workers such as retail staff and delivery drivers, but it is time we back up the clap with tangible action that will make a difference.It is time for tangible change. While I welcome the commitment in the programme for Government to examine this issue, it would be good to get clarity from the Minister for Justice on whether that will be an independent investigation or one that will be carried out by the Department. We will hear a lot today about how far we have come but these two issues are just the tip of the iceberg and show how far we have left to go to achieve gender equality in Ireland.