Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is very welcome today. I am delighted to have her in the Chamber, and I wanted to thank the caucus for putting care to the forefront of the activities of our parliamentarians. It is really important and as we have said many times in this Chamber, the Seanad being made up of 40% women, and having women at the table, makes a difference. That is the first thing I wanted to speak about. Before I was involved in politics, I started an organisation to advocate for stay-at-home parents. It was on that basis that I was seen as qualified to run for the Labour Panel. As they are not in employment, people who care in the home have no union they can join, so it is really very difficult to advocate for themselves. They are also quite isolated. That is why I thought it was really important to have people who are elected to speak about this. We all do as parliamentarians but there are a lot of people at home who do not get to advocate for themselves. That is why it is really important.

One group is those with disabilities who are not in employment. They sometimes are in employment but we know that there are higher rates of unemployment among those who are disabled. There are a lot of people, I guess, who have no access to reputation just because of the circumstances in their lives. Senators may have heard one of my party colleagues, Niamh Ní Hoireabhaird, on various news stations, or read her in the paper talking about the fact that she is getting married in December. She is getting married to another lovely member of my party. She is going to run for election for us in Clane next year. I am not trying to lobby for her but I am saying that it is really important to have in politics not just women but lots of different people who are absent from council chambers. There are lots of people who are absent from this Chamber and most definitely, there are a lot of people absent from the Dáil Chamber who do not get to advocate for themselves. Niamh is at risk of losing her disability allowance just because she is getting married, and that is because of the grouped nature of income. Why is it that before one is married, one has all of these costs associated with having a disability but when one is married, suddenly one is seen as not having them? It is completely unfair and archaic. The exact same thing happens when one is a stay-at-home parent, if one is married. We just have to get rid of it. It is not a decent way to treat people. I would love to hear what the Minister of State's thoughts are on that.

I wanted to point out what the Government is doing, and I know it is mentioned in the motion as well. It acknowledges that spending on the care economy has increased by 21% between 2019 and 2023. That is this period of Government that we are in. It is really hard to say that sometimes because when one is really struggling financially, it feels like nobody cares and no money is being put it into it. It actually has increased by 21% but this just goes to show how low it was in the first place. I know that it is being taken really seriously not just in the spending but also the kind of legislation that is being passed. Recommendation 3 of this motion calls on the Government to provide access to the State contributory pension for those in receipt of carers' allowance. Just this morning at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands, pre-legislative scrutiny began on the heads of the social welfare (amendment) Bill 2023, which is addressing just that. That was a commitment in the programme for Government, and now it is going through.

At present, there is a huge disadvantage if one stays at home for a period of time beyond ten years. Lots of people do for various reasons, and they have to. I was the Leas-Chathaoirleach of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Gender Equality, and at that committee, what we heard really clearly was that when one is a parent of young children and taking time off, or one is working and splitting responsibilities, sometimes one has to rush back home because somebody is ill. However, when one is a woman usually over the age of 50 - but it can be at any age - and if one has elderly parents or if there is a vulnerable adult in one's household, it is mainly down to women, and there are other reasons why one has to take time off work. That is an area that we just do not acknowledge and that needs to be taken into consideration. It is disadvantaging women when it comes to their pension rights.

I know my time is nearly up but I also wanted to mention the referendum. We need to push ahead with the care referendum but we need to get it right because we can lose referendums. It was a real concern for us on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Gender Equality that if the wording sparks something that actually gets people's backs up, then we could lose a referendum that is designed to help people who are caring. We need to get the wording right.

I want to make a final point about section 39 workers. It is an absolute outrage that we have discrimination against care workers, which is what we have. There are lots of organisation that cannot get people to work for them because they are not paid a decent wage. It is time for that to be addressed.