Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is the first time in three years that summer festivals will be taking place. That is brilliant and badly needed for the music and arts sector. I want to refer to research recently undertaken by a group called FairPlé, which examined 16 folk and trad festivals dating back to 2018.Only a quarter of the performances at those festivals were by women performers, and that does not even cover those who were working in the background. I appeal to festival organisers and to those attending to really demand and do better with regard to gender balance. We know there are fantastic performers out there but they need to be given the opportunity.

Tomorrow, hundreds of medical scientists will be forced to go out on strike because of absolute frustration and a sense of burnout with regard to their working conditions. We know that 20% of posts for medical scientists across Irish hospitals remain unfilled, we know there are massive recruitment difficulties and we know there was a botched pay parity process over 20 years ago that has yet to be fixed. I know some of the medical scientists who will be out tomorrow and I can tell the House that the last place on this planet they want to be tomorrow is outside their hospitals with a placard. They want to be inside, doing their job, but they feel they have been so shamefully treated by the HSE and the Department of Health that they have been left with no option. I ask the Government representatives in the House to intervene and speak to the Minister for Health to ensure a deal can be done. Not an awful lot is needed to fix this issue but, to date, the HSE and the Department of Health have done little or nothing to resolve it, with the result that there will be hundreds on strike tomorrow, bringing vital services in Irish hospitals to a halt.