Seanad debates

Tuesday, 25 October 2022

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business

 

2:30 pm

Photo of Annie HoeyAnnie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I wish to take a moment to reflect on last week, when I spent two immersive days in Iceland. I was on a study trip with the all-party group on workplace equality, supported by WorkEqual and Alice PR. We were travelling around, visiting people and talking to them about how Iceland became the world's most gender-equal country. We met with trade unions, advocacy groups, MPs and councillors. Even the Prime Minister managed to find time to meet with us. From the research on our trip, it became incredibly clear that there are two big levers as to how Iceland has achieved gender equality. One is sustainable, affordable childcare. Childcare in Iceland is part of the country's education system. It is not seen as a separate, stand-alone system. The second lever is mandatory shared parental leave, which we do not have, of six months for each parent, six weeks of which is transferable between parents. We thought, "Wow, that is pretty bold and pretty brave." Only when the leave was made mandatory did both parents start taking it. Then a shift was seen in how gender equality was playing out in the workplace.

Obviously, all is not yet perfect in Iceland. There are challenges along the way around public discourse, there are gender-segregated workforces and there is still an issue with the bridging of the gap between the end of parental leave and the start of day care. However, Iceland is far ahead of where we are going in respect of ending the gender pay gap, gender equality in the workplace, gender equality in the home and work-life balance.

We also met with the deputy mayor of Reykjavík and heard how local government is empowered and funded. The Government provides the day care, or what we would call childcare. The focus is on the right of the child to be educated. Childcare is not seen as a solution to allow parents to work. Also, I am sure many Senators would be interested to know that in Iceland 30% of people's taxes go straight into local government. Can the House imagine the prospect of 30% of our taxes going straight into local government? Local government in Iceland oversees the provision of school classes, day care, childcare, road planning - all those areas. We could definitely learn a lot from Iceland, not only in respect of gender equality but also in how we deal with, fund and empower local government, leaving national government to deal with the bigger, broader picture stuff.

A key idea I picked up was, as I have mentioned, that childcare, day care and parental leave are rights of the child. They are not a means of allowing the parents to go and work or to do whatever it is they want to do. This is about the right of children to get to spend time with both parents and to have childcare as part of their education. When we in Ireland talk about childcare and parental leave, we just do not look at it through that lens.We are instead looking at it through the lens of how we can get parents into the workforce, or whatever it is, and it is not about the right of the child. WorkEqual is now gathering hard data around this. I am sure the all-party group will be reporting back on that and there are some really interesting aspects there. Icelanders are incredibly happy with it. Every person we spoke to talked about the two big levers, namely, mandatory parental leave and childcare being part of the education system. We need to consider how we are thinking about those two things. Brave decisions would have to be taken if we were to go down that route but we are up for the challenge.

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