Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Tá an-áthas orm a bheith anseo ar Lá Idirnáisiúnta na mBan. Is mór an onóir dom a bheith mar bhean sa Seomra seo. Tá níos mó ban ag teastáil. Mar a dúirt an tAire, níl ach 23% sa Dáil agus 39% sa Seanad. Is mór an trua é sin.

It is a huge honour to be a woman in this House. I never in my life realised how weird it feels to be a woman trying to organise anything where the majority in the room are men, until I walked into the Seanad two and a half years ago where almost 40% of those present were women. It was probably 50% women as some of the men were missing. The feeling I got when I walked in that day made me realise the lack of that feeling I had in most of my prior experience in the areas of computer science, maths, physics and political life. I did not realise I had missed that feeling. What a different feeling it is to be in a room as a woman, where the majority of those present are men. I studied computer science and mathematics-physics in college. There were seven girls and 35 lads on the course. To that end, it was often said to me by the men that I should just sign my name to the group work they would do, and go do girly things, while they took care of the mathematics-physics project or whatever. That was a long time ago now. I hope things have improved. I saw two of the projects by girls who were winners in the young scientist of the year competition were around technology. It is great to see that happening.

I thank the Minister. When he and the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, took up their posts, I thought they would be a great team that would make a significant difference. Huge strides have been made around the gender pay gap, breast-feeding and other issues around sexual violence towards women. I thank the Ministers for that. Of course, there is much more to be done and it will be a hard battle. Until more women are at the decision-making tables, whether it is in the public, private or any sector, women's issues will not be dealt with. For example, 88% of carers in Ireland are female. As a result, carers have a very precarious job. It is very difficult for them, the pay is not great and they do not get mileage. Many of them are not sure about job security and we do not have enough of them. I firmly believe if more women were involved in decision-making we would not have this issue with carers being - I will not use the word "mistreated" - taken for granted and underpaid. That is a huge issue because carers are the ones who take care of those with disabilities and older people in our society. You can call me sexist and say this is total generalisation but women are generally the primary carers and educators, and the primary people dealing with health issues. Unfortunately, they are the ones dealing with those issues but are not doing so at the decision-making table. That is something that is really lacking.

It will serve everybody in society, both men and women, if we have more gender equality.Women and men are not the same but we are definitely equal. We need to understand that it is not a big challenge and that it is not about standing on the men to get out of our way. We want to do this with them. We need to all do it together. We need equality as much as possible. Unfortunately, because we have come through this patriarchy that we are still very much in, women often do not feel qualified enough to put themselves forward for positions. Men are happy to put themselves forward for positions they are not qualified for. Women have to feel overqualified for a position before they put their hand up and apply for it. We really need to try to change that.

People can get offended if they want to but I am over that now. The other thing I wanted to say is that sometimes I still experience moments in meetings where I am either mansplained or I say something, whoever is chairing the meeting does not really hear it, then a man says the exact same thing and the person chairing the meeting says it is a brilliant idea. I do not know if that happens to others here. I would say I had literally just said that and would have to ask the chair if we are just here for fun. This happens within the walls of this building too. It is shocking. I brought it up at a women's event last week. Many of my colleagues in the Seanad and Dáil agreed. The men in here are great and I have nothing against them, but they need to be more aware that they do that, even the liberal ones who think they are left wing and very down with equality. It is not their fault but when people are raised in a patriarchy, it is insidious and embedded in us. Some of us women might not hear a woman before we would hear a man. We are all sexist. I will not just blame men for this.