Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for being here. We appreciate it and I thank her for the points she has brought to us. The introduction of the long-term carer's PRSI contribution for a State pension for those who have cared for incapacitated dependants over a period of time is welcome. There are aspects on which the Minister of State has given detailed information that make a difference to the lives of those with a disability and to those caring for them. I thank all of my colleagues who have spoken on this motion; it is appreciated.

I want to put a few points on the record. First, we agreed that this motion would be heard in both the Seanad and the Dáil, and we are waiting for a time in the Dáil for this to be discussed. I welcome that Senator Boyhan spoke on the motion because it is very important to have men as part of the conversation on the issues the Irish Women's Parliamentary Caucus talk about and bring to the attention of everybody. The Senator raised some general points about women running for election and how difficult it is, particularly in local elections. We have a task, and that is part of what we do. We try to support those who are running, for whatever party or as independents, and we have had engagement with See Her Elected and the Association of Irish Local Government, AILG, on barriers. We have called for and helped secure the security allowance that was announced two weeks ago for councillors, regardless of gender, and we will continue that work.

I want to take Senator Boyhan to task on two issues. One is on Senator Clonan's motion, and Senator Seery Kearney put on the record exactly what happened that day. I would have thought that Senator Clonan would have been happy with the result of that day. There are those of us on the Government side who took a principled decision to make that call because we believed in what that motion was. Trying to politicise it does not do anybody any favours and Senator Boyhan is trying to politicise this motion. I am not here to represent the Government. I a member of a Government party but I am here as the chair of the Irish Women’s Parliamentary Caucus. All of us women, including the Minister of State, are members of the Irish Women’s Parliamentary Caucus. To try to be divisive in it and to call out Government inaction is not appropriate. When we drafted this motion, with the help of Oireachtas Members, it was very important that we tried to not take a party political view but to take a view on what we all felt was important, while taking on board the 38 submissions and the views of the ten different groups that we listened to during our stakeholder engagement. Having said that, we appreciate that the Senator supports the motion and that he was here to speak on it. I also want to acknowledge Senator Currie, who is a member of the working group.

On the section 38 and 39 organisations, I completely agree with Senator Sherlock. Again, the motion was not about that but I had a meeting this morning with the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, the CEO of the Muiríosa Foundation and the CEO of Kare, and we spoke about that element. I got the distinct impression that Government is making moves in that direction, and rightly so. It is hugely important that we value the work of caring. I hate talking about section 38 organisations versus section 39 because we are taking away from the value of what people are doing.

We could talk forever about the challenges that people with disabilities face, and we could discuss all of the many things we need to do and put in place, including in the education sector and with the work the Minister of State is doing. We have to come back to who cares about the carer. What we were trying to do in the motion was care about the carer. There should not be a means test of the carer's allowance and we were clear on that in the motion. That was nearly the biggest message in this to successive Government parties. No more than the period poverty motion that the Irish Women’s Parliamentary Caucus moved in a previous mandate, it took until the next mandate to be able to do something about it. It may well take quite a period of time to be able to put everything in train in this.

I thank everybody for their contributions and I look forward to this being debated in the Dáil. I thank the Minister of State for being here and I thank Senator Maria Byrne for chairing the debate.