I move:
That Seanad Éireann urges the Government to establish a National Paid Holiday to value women's work on 1 February (St. Brigid's Day) annually, commencing 2001; and to devise and implement the necessary statistical means to measure unpaid household, caring and community work.
This is a very happy day because, in a spirit of lateral thinking and reconciliation I have had negotiations with the Leader of the House and the amendment the Government had intended to table has been withdrawn. As a result I shall make a slight adjustment to the motion. The amended motion is as follows:
That Seanad Éireann calls on the Government to consider the establishment of a National Paid Holiday to value women's work on 1 February (St. Brigid's Day) annually, commencing 2001; and to devise and implement the necessary statistical means to measure unpaid household, caring and community work.
We have substituted the phrase "calls on" for the term "urges" and the word "establish" has been replaced with the term "to consider the establishment of". As far as I am concerned, that covers the ground we originally wished to cover. This means that the House can be united on International Women's Day in urging the Government to take a series of steps which I believe it is already gearing up to take on foot of certain international undertakings it has given and on which it would be embarrassing to renege.
There is a good wind behind us on this matter because, when we were negotiating a date on which to debate it, the Government had originally agreed to make time available last week. Had that happened, the debate would not have taken place on International Women's Day. We were also informed that a Minister could not be found to take the debate. However, it emerged that my Private Members' time would fall on International Women's Day. What serendipitous coincidence could be more favourable to this motion? I do not doubt that St. Brigid, who was one of the first lateral thinkers, was smiling upon us. Is it not true that when she requested land from a local king it was agreed that she could have as much land as her cloak would cover. When she placed it on the ground it spread out to cover the entire county of Kildare. This is an interesting paradigm of the way I hope this idea will spread.
Some people are concerned about the establishment of a national paid holiday on 1 February because of the financial costs involved. What is money? It is not really a physical reality at all. We are misled into thinking that because we have £20 notes and £1 coins in our pockets. However, money is nothing more than the symbolic representation of energy, the symbolic representation of a reward for work. Women who, on a global basis, do 75% of the work for less than 5% of the yields and own 1% of the property surely have a right to have this recognised.
What we intend to do this evening is to place this matter on the public agenda. It does not matter to me if there is a dispute about it. In fact, the more disputes there are the merrier. We already heard voices raised in opposition on today's Order of Business when an "I'm all right Jill" syndrome came into play. Some female Members stated that we do not really need this national paid holiday. In a way that is a mark of the success of the women's movement and of how far we have come in the past 40 to 50 years. During that period women have gained the right to sit on juries, access to contraception, independent passports, etc. On radio this morning Nell McCafferty said that child care allowances used to be paid exclusively to men. Nowadays that seems a barbarous and stupid practice. However, we have, fortunately, moved onward.
People have said that the establishment of a national paid holiday on St. Brigid's Day is irrelevant and that we should be concentrating on the provision of child care facilities. I reject this argument because it is not an "either or" question. Why should we set two good ideas in competition with each other? Why can we not say that we want and are entitled to both?
International Women's Day has its origins in the activism of women who worked in the clothing sweatshops of New York in the early years of this century. In 1907, women working in these appalling conditions, who often worked long hours in dangerous conditions, held a hunger march in New York calling for a ten hour working day and better wages. Shamefully this march was attacked by the police. On 8 March the following year, a landmark march was held in New York to commemorate these women's struggle and this became the kernel of International Women's Day.
Early in the 20th century, similar impoverished women workers in Ireland struggled for their rights. In 1945, there was a laundry workers strike seeking the right to two weeks' paid holidays, the issue we are dealing with today. There was opposition to this demand but the workers won and everyone benefited – men and women. The most marginalised workers benefited from the efforts of these equally marginalised women workers. We should be proud of them in the same way that we should be proud of the 11 Dunnes Stores workers who stood up for a matter of principle in the 1980s and paid for it with their jobs. We should ensure that this never happens again.
Diverse events have been held in Ireland over the years at national and community level to celebrate women's lives, to highlight issues specific to them and to campaign for equality. Today, for example, the Letterkenny Women's Centre did something close to my heart when it celebrated the opening of its new library and the launching of a book entitled Building Peace – A Guide for Women's Groups. An interdenominational memorial service will be held in Galway this evening to commemorate women who lost their lives as a result of domestic violence, and we must all commit ourselves to dealing with this problem.
At 11 o'clock this morning the National Women's Council of Ireland held a wonderful celebration with tea, cakes and laughter. The only embarrassing thing was that I was interviewed quite often so I said to every person who approached me that they should make sure that they first spoke to an ungodly scatter of women, as I did not wish to appear as carpet-bagging on this important issue. The only reason I am here is that I was captured by Margaretta D'Arcy outside the gates of this august building, symbolically imprisoned and released on a promise of good behaviour and a commitment to fight for this holiday. I am simply operating the terms of my parole by raising this issue, but that does not mean I do not believe in it.
I was remiss in not welcoming the Minister of State, Deputy Treacy, and I am particularly glad that this Minister of State is in attendance. Deputy Treacy and I fought for a new section to be inserted in the Children Bill. Although this was politically difficult, the Minister of State took this issue to Cabinet and a child's life was recently saved by the new section of the Children Act. That would not have happened without this Minister of State. Our negotiations have slightly wrong-footed him and he will have to rework part of his speech. However, thank God he is in attendance as he is able to take this kind of politically difficult and delicate situation on the hoof. In his heart he will be glad that we have reached this compromise as that is where his emotions and instincts lie.
We are seeking a paid bank holiday. There is nothing bizarre in this demand as the schedule of holidays highlights the fact that Ireland is joint second last with The Netherlands in having only nine holidays. Other European countries have 13 holidays so we are four behind the leaders. The only country which is worse than Ireland, inevitably, is the UK, but do we wish to emulate it? It is more or less inevitable that this bank holiday will come and we are issuing a pre-emptive strike and placing ourselves first in the queue for the granting of this holiday on St. Brigid's Day.
The facts present a stark picture. Women's unwaged work amounts to the largest industry in the State. The Ark Life survey estimated its value at £14 billion per year. This survey represents something very disturbing and interesting. It was conducted by an insurance company to help its campaign to encourage husbands to insure themselves against the death of their wives and the company wanted to quantify the loss caused by women's deaths. If there was a mass annihilation of all women it would cost the Exchequer £14 billion. Is it not interesting that the only time we officially valued women was when we considered what would happen if their work was taken away from us privileged men? This fact tells its own story.
As the main carers of children and other dependants, women save the State a fortune while often living on very limited means and without full entitlements to social insurance credits in their own right. Women are the most active volunteers in the community and many initiatives are dependent on their contributions of time, experience and expertise. More women than ever are doing a double job for one wage. They are working outside the home until 6 p.m., then coming home and doing housework. Many reports substantiate this fact.
A publication called Emerging Voices: Women in Contemporary Irish Society stated:
Women working full-time in the home include those who were excluded from paid employment prior to 1973 by the marriage bar and who are now unable to re-enter the labour force; those who see housewifery and child rearing as more emotionally rewarding than the paid employment currently available to them; those who, in the face of spousal opposition, lack of satisfactory child care arrangements, appropriate job opportunities, or because of the nature of taxation or welfare systems, have concluded that it simply does not pay them to undertake paid employment; as well as those who married in the expectation of having a male breadwinner, but do not now have one and are unable or unwilling to undertake this role themselves.
It is also important to recognise that this is an international issue. A global strike was organised as this issue affects women all over the world. It may seem bizarre but one of the most moving events was a collection organised by prostitutes. These people felt so marginalised and sent a fax stating that they wanted to be a part of this as they had decided to sell their sexuality to provide for their families. They wished to be included so that it would not be a case of good women on one side and bad women on the other. They are all women at a fundamental level.
The Government gave commitments at the UN social summit in Copenhagen and the UN conference on women in Beijing. On both occasions it signed up to commitments to measure and value unwaged work, including conducting regular surveys and setting up national accounts to reflect the value of unremunerated work. However, five years on, these commitments are unfulfilled.
In June 2000, an Irish delegation will travel to New York to take part in an international review of progress on commitments made in Beijing as part of a programme for action. It will be embarrassing if we have not done something and we are providing the Government with an instrument. It can go to New York and state that in Seanad Éireann on International Women's Day this measure was passed. I serve a warning that we will monitor this issue to ensure that this is acted upon.
I wish to outline the traditional and existing situation regarding domestic work. The publication I referred to earlier also noted that, "In Ireland, among men who did take responsibility for at least one domestic task, the proportion who were willing to cook, clean, shop, or dress children was lower than in any other EC country". It also noted that, "84 per cent of the Irish men interviewed said that they did no domestic work whatever, as compared with a European average of 62 per cent".
The report also highlighted that, "Where only one partner had ‘an afternoon or evening out in the last fortnight, for your entertainment, something that cost money', it was most likely to be the husband". This puts in context our request that St. Brigid's Day, which celebrates a national Irish saint, and is nicely spaced from other national holidays, should be a holiday which recognises the massive and heretofore unrecognised contribution women make to the economy. The Government should commit itself to carrying out a survey which will quantify in minute detail the contribution of women to the economy.