Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister will be aware that there is a very significant concern in respect of the domestic violence provisions in this Bill and the failure to date of the Minister to follow through with the commitment that one of his officials gave in the past week, which was to propose an amendment to do away with the provision of a reduced rate of pay for domestic violence leave. I note that there is no such Government amendment proposed to do that. I am genuinely shocked by that.

I spoke yesterday evening on a related matter and I explained that I understood the Minister was going to propose an amendment to deal with this issue, to ensure a victim of domestic violence would not suffer a pay cut, with respect to payment for domestic violence leave. I was under the impression that everyone understood and was in agreement on this point.We raised it this morning on the Order of Business when we found out that there was no such amendment scheduled for today and we asked that the Government pause this Bill until such time as the amendment was tabled. Unless the Minister says to me, and I hope he will, that he will accept my party's amendment No. 4, which deals with this issue, I will be at a genuine loss because as matters stand there is no amendment from the Government to address the matters raised by Women's Aid, the National Women's Council of Ireland and the Fórsa trade union.

I am told the Minister confirmed in the Dáil today that the reduced pay provisions will remain in this Bill. That is entirely unacceptable. The amendments the Minister has put down in relation to this issue are minor and simply mean that the Minister must have regard to the views of domestic violence services when he cuts victims' pay.

I am genuinely at a loss as to why the Minister has not done what his official said he would do and address this issue and get rid of the reduced pay provisions. However, I recognise that Senators from all parties across this Chamber have called on the Minister to address this issue. Senator Chambers endorsed the view of Women's Aid and said that priority should be given to ensure women's safety. Senator Seery Kearney said that the legislation should be reviewed and she would strongly advocate for it to be changed. The Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, and Deputy Emer Higgins said the legislation should be reviewed, and the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, said victims should get full pay as "it is not their fault".

Here is the difficulty. If we do not fix this now, when we have the opportunity to do so, Deputy O'Gorman will not only be failing in his duty as a Minister and failing the women and, indeed, men of Ireland who are victims of domestic abuse, he will be failing politics because everyone here knows what the right thing to do is, and for the life of me, I do not understand why the Minister does not do it.

I appeal to the Minister and to my colleagues on the Government benches to support this amendment. The Minister should not let this opportunity pass. This is the last chance to do the right thing on this issue. The Minister has the power to do so.

The Minister is making a political choice. At present, he appears to be making the wrong political choice. Let me stress again that nothing in the amendments proposed by the Government today deals with this issue. The reduced pay provisions remain in this Bill unless we agree, here and now, to remove them. The Minister should do so.