Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 25 Jun 1985

Vol. 359 No. 9

Estimates, 1985. - Social Welfare (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, 1984: Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Mr. Yates

At the outset of my contribution I was outlining the anomalies that exist for women in the social welfare code and welcomed the Bill which will remove them. I understand that more than 46,000 married women will benefit at an original cost of £7.5 million and a subsequent cost of £8.1 million due to the transitional arrangements announced by the Minister following the publication of the Bill. Undoubtedly, it is a source of regret that although the directive was agreed by EC Ministers of Social Welfare in 1978 it could not have been brought in sooner. Ideally such a fundamental change in the social welfare code needs to be phased in over a six year period and the EC directive suggested that there should be progressive implementation.

Because of the way the Bill is introduced, it will cause difficulty. There will be no change in pay-related benefit, but the real benefits will be for wives who are social welfare recipients whose husbands are at work, that is, the wife on disability benefit, unemployment benefit, occupational injury benefit or in receipt of invalidity pension. This woman will now get the maximum personal rate. That will mean £4.50 per week for those in receipt of unemployment and disability benefit, £5.10 a week for those in receipt of invalidity pension, and £10.70 per week for those in receipt of occupational injuries benefit. The other great advantage is that those on unemployment benefit will gain an extra 88 days. This is only just because these women are paying their PRSI contributions.

However, problems arise where both husband and wife are on social welfare. The proposed cutback in the adult dependant allowance is greater than the increase from the reduced to the maximum rate for the wife. A man on disability benefit with three children will have a cut in his dependant's allowance of £24.15 a week. Even if the wife gets an increase of £4.50 a week, that will not compensate for the cutback. Let us take an elderly man whose children have left home. His cutback in the dependant's allowance will be £27.60 a week, whereas the wife's increase may be only £5.10. This means that families will suffer a cutback of between £15 to £20 per week, depending on the number of children.

It is estimated that 9,000 households will lose by the cutback in the adult dependant's allowance. I understand the Minister's dilemma, which I think was faced by the previous Government because nothing was done about this since 1978. If we just introduce the good part of this directive, which will give the wives the benefit of this £10 million, and retain the adult dependant's allowance, the total cost will be in the region of £100 million. For example, it is not fair that a bank manager's wife in receipt of disability benefit should get the social welfare adult dependant's allowance for her husband. The real injustice will be as this affects lower income families. I am not suggesting that the adult dependant's allowance should be given across the board, as Deputy McCarthy seemed to suggest, but in my opinion there are a number of cases which should be investigated.

Other European countries have had difficulty implementing this directive, particularly Holland. I appreciate that it is unrealistic and unfeasible to go the full way to meet the case Fianna Fáil are making, or not to make any changes in the adult dependant's allowances. However, the potential hardship which will be caused for low income families merits action. Perhaps in the regulations or on Committee Stage the Minister might consider making two changes. He has made two transitional arrangements which will be of great benefit. The first was that he introduced an earning floor of £50 a week beneath which the spouse's earnings would be disregarded. The second arrangement is that he will pay £10 a week of the adult dependant's allowance. I welcome the Minister's efforts in this regard. In my view this is the right approach but he might go a little further.

I will now suggest modest extensions to what he has already outlined. First, if the earnings floor is £50 a week, people earning just above that figure will lose out. This will create a poverty trap for those earning between £50 and £100 a week. I suggest that there be a sliding scale introduced. Earnings beneath £50 would be totally disregarded; earnings between £50 and £75 would have 50 pence in the £ disregarded; and those between £75 and £100 would have 75 pence in the £ disregarded. This would mean that the new floor limit would be £100 a week.

Second, I suggest that the Minister increase the adult dependant's allowance from £10 to £15. This extra £5 would make a great difference and it would not be very expensive when we consider that all benefit, with the exception of some aspects of disability benefit, is exhaustible. As people sign on at the employment exchanges their benefits run out after 390 days. This means that this is not a permanent fixed cost on the Exchequer and people who have paid six months PRSI contributions in the relevant contribution year are entitled to these benefits. These are two modest arrangements which could be implemented at no great cost to the Minister.

Section 4 deals with child dependant's allowance and it is proposed that this allowance be split. For example, if a mother and father with four children are on disability benefit, the husband would be paid for two children and the wife for the other two children. That is my understanding of the section. This means that if the husband is at work and the wife is drawing disability benefit, they will be at a loss of 50 per cent of the child dependant's allowance. In other words, they will be paid for two children because only one spouse is on social welfare. This means bigger families will be hit hardest. If there are 14 children in a family, the parent on social welfare benefit will lose the dependant's allowance for seven children. In certain instances larger families are more deserving of help. I see a great difficulty with this section. I appreciate the need for it but it would be better if the child dependant's allowance were not split for incomes below £6,000. In other words, if the husband is still at work and has an income above £6,000, then the 50 per cent rule should apply, but if his income is less than £6,000 there should be an income limit on the application of section 4. That would be reasonable and would target the help towards the areas where it is badly needed.

Section 12 particularly concerns me. It deals with unemployment assistance cases. Of all the categories of social welfare, this is the area of greatest hardship, with the lowest form of payment and with no fringe benefits such as free electricity or fuel. It is also subject to a very vigorous means test. These are the real hardship cases, most deserving of help. However, section 12 does not provide equal treatment. Take the example of a Mr. John Murphy and a Mrs. Mary Murphy, both working, say, in a hotel for three years which then closes down. Both draw their unemployment benefit for a year and a half and both sign for unemployment assistance. Under section 12, the position is that he can draw the maximum personal rate for himself, his children and his wife. However, if she also signs she will get no maximum personal rate, which is being given in cases of disability benefit, occupational injury benefit and unemployment benefit.

The whole purpose of the EC directive is to ensure that women, by virtue of their sex or marital status, are treated similarly to those with the same PRSI contributions and the same hours of work. Married women whose husbands are on unemployment assistance cannot avail of the maximum personal rate and there is no point in their signing, except for credit signing purposes, and I appreciate that there is no change in credit signing here. Equal treatment would cost very little. I ask the Minister to amend section 12 to ensure that women who are on unemployment assistance get similar treatment. I acknowledge that heretofore married women whose husbands were on social welfare could not draw unemployment assistance at all.

There are other forms of discrimination of a more latent form against wives and mothers in the social welfare code. This Bill, in its spirit or in its detail, does not correct these forms of discrimination. I am thinking principally of women seeking to draw unemployment assistance or benefit, who are asked many questions about their availability for work which men are not asked. We are all aware that women are asked to produce letters stating who will mind the children; men are not asked this question. We are all aware that women must provide many letters stating that they have sought work. It is not legislated for, but women are asked to go through more hoops and more red tape than men and this is discrimination. No section in the Bill deals with this area. Perhaps, when concluding on Second Stage, the Minister could refer to these points.

Similarily there is gross discrimination on the male side. I am thinking principally of two areas, first deserted husbands who have no income and must mind the children because they cannot afford to pay anyone to mind them. There is no such thing as a deserted husband's allowance. Similarly, there is an anomaly with regard to deserting wives who bring their children with them. Not having been deserted, they get no allowance. I was speaking earlier to the general Social Welfare Bill and this area is in an utter mess with regard to people who produce annulment orders, separation documentation or even divorce documentation from Britain. These do not necessarily satisfy the criteria for deserted wife's allowance. This matter needs to be cleared up.

The other area of discrimination, more harrowing and more genuine in terms of the assumption that there is some element of culpability on the part of both partners if a marriage breaks up, is that of widowers. They get nothing at all. I know of one friend whose wife died in very tragic circumstances four years ago, leaving him to bring up three very young children. All that widower can get is unemployment assistance. Technically speaking, he is not available for work because he cannot afford to get someone to mind the children. There is no equivalent for widowers of the widow's contributory or non-contributory pension. I am not a legal eagle, but it strikes me that that is not fair play. What is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander here. Widowers are deserving of some form of small consideration, especially now that we are purporting to have full equality.

There are other forms of minor discrimination of which the Minister should take account. For example, when somebody is in a wheelchair, totally incapacitated, or dying, because his wife is living with him he is excluded from the free telephone rental allowance. I do not know how he is supposed to survive without his wife living with him, but the regulations say that if the wife is in good health the husband is not eligible for this benefit. It is very hard to explain the matter to such people.

I can see in the years ahead a change in the employment pattern, both in the public and private sectors, by virtue of the fact that there will not be work for all. There will be a mutual demand — on behalf of the unemployed and on behalf of some workers — for some form of job sharing, not particular to any sex. On my recent canvas for the local elections, I met many nurses. They said that the INO had made a submission to the Minister for Health seeking job sharing. The fallout of job sharing might not be dealt with in this Bill.

All the changes in the Bill are based on Class A1 contribution — in other words, one's equal treatment under unemployment benefit, disability benefit and so on is based solely on Class A1 contributions. Less than 18 work hours a week could be the upshot of much job sharing and it is the role of the Government to encourage job sharing, in order to distribute the existing work load.

In the long term, I should like to see a section in this Bill which would make it possible to review the present approach. Generally, changes in Bills are made every 20 or 30 years, invariably during the term of office of a Coalition Government, and it is important that there should be some clause to ensure that by ministerial order a class less than A1 contribution could be considered for equal treatment.

It is mostly women who have part time work. Men still have the traditional role of the breadwinner and would be better off on the dole or on social welfare benefit than working 18 hours a week. That is why there are so many nixers. I should like the Bill to encompass changes in work patterns by virtue of work sharing.

This is a limited debate and there are a large number of speakers. I welcome this Bill and request the Minister and the Department, irrespective of administrative or financial difficulties, not to delay further. There has been a long delay with regard to this Bill and we have had no clear enunciation of an implementation date and no talk of retrospection. I should like an implementation date of 1 October of this year and retrospection to the date of the increase in social welfare payments in July 1985. That would be fair and clear cut and it would be a gesture of good faith.

It appears from statements made by Sylvia Meehan and others in the Employment Equality Agency that the good work of this Bill has been somewhat distorted and misrepresented. It would be a gesture of goodwill to have an element of retrospection. We would also like a clear commitment with regard to the date of implementation.

In general I welcome the Bill.

Mr. J. O'Leary

While I agree with the principle of the Bill, which is to provide for equality of treatment for men and women with regard to the social welfare code, there are many aspects of the Bill about which I am not happy. It will pose grave problems to implement the measure and the Department of Social Welfare will require extra accommodation and personnel to operate it satisfactorily. If the provisions of the Bill are not implemented satisfactorily it will be a failure. As far as I can see it will either be a complete success or a failure — there is no in-between.

The Bill provides for payment of unemployment assistance to married women and I am most anxious that this provision should be operated as efficiently as possible. However, I have grave doubts about the capacity of the Department, as at present constituted, to implement the Bill. At present the entire unemployment system as it is operated in the Department has broken down and there are undue and unnecessary delays in deciding applications and appeals. I do not understand why it sometimes takes up to two to three months to decide on an application for unemployment assistance. Neither can I understand why it can take up to six months in respect of an appeal against a decision of a deciding officer to reduce, discontinue payment or not to grant unemployment assistance to an applicant.

In my opinion the Department of Social Welfare are inadequately staffed so far as deciding officers and appeals officers are concerned. Many people in South Kerry have encountered long delays in dealing with their applications. The whole scheme requires a review, primarily to ensure that there are no more long delays. I would consider a delay that is longer than three weeks to be an undue delay with regard to an application for unemployment assistance and a period in excess of three or four weeks in relation to an appeal would constitute an undue delay in my opinion. I should like a deciding officer to be based in each exchange. It is only by decentralisation of the decision-making process at that level——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I do not wish to interrupt the Deputy. I accept he is concerned about the social welfare code but here we are dealing with a particular Bill and I ask him to confine himself to that.

Mr. J. O'Leary

I will not argue with the Chair. I am talking about delays——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair will accept a passing reference. I should not like the Deputy to confine his contribution in the debate to the social welfare code.

Mr. J. O'Leary

I will not elaborate on that and shall pass on to the Bill——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I should like the Deputy to do that.

Mr. J. O'Leary

I can see problems with regard to getting decisions within a reasonable time for married women who may apply for unemployment assistance. I agree fully with the proposal to provide this payment to married women who are entitled to it. However, I should not like these applications to be added to the large numbers of undecided applications already in the exchanges. Neither should I like to see the applications being trapped in the large number of appeals being considered at present in the Department. I suggest to the Minister that the number of appeals officers and deciding officers be increased substantially. In my view there should be a deciding officer in each exchange.

Under existing legislation married women are effectively debarred from unemployment assistance. In order for a married woman to qualify her husband must be dependent on her. This means he must be wholly or mainly maintained by her and incapable of self support by reason of mental or physical infirmity. Alternatively, the wife must not be a dependant of her husband. At present married women can only rarely qualify for unemployment assistance in respect of children as they are deemed to be normally resident with the father. Therefore, it is necessary to change that part of the social welfare code.

In his speech the Minister said:

To simply extend to women present conditions which men enjoy would mean that a wasteful and inequitable payment of adult and child dependant increases, even in respect of spouses at work in well-paid employment, which occurs at present would be expanded enormously and would indeed reach gigantic proportions.

I do not agree that it would involve much additional expenditure. I should like to see the scheme extended to women and equal pay for men and women in respect of adult and child dependants.

Unemployment assistance is a means tested scheme and, in common with other assistance schemes, the income of the spouse is taken into account. I agree with this, but in relation to self-employed people and husbands on very low incomes a certain proportion of their income should be excluded. It is very difficult to say where the line should be drawn but it should be specified in regulations. Section 12 provides a mechanism which will ensure that unemployment assistance is not used as a means of topping up the family income. Here is a glorious opportunity to provide an increase through the unemployment assistance scheme to improve the family income. I can understand the provision being made whereby increases are not granted in relation to wives of self-employed husbands or husbands of self-employed wives but exceptions should be made by way of regulation for those on very low incomes.

I am glad to see payment of increases for children with maternity allowance. This is not required by the terms of the directive but there has been a demand for this for some time. The Minister said that over 46,000 married women on social welfare will benefit from the provisions of the Bill. How was this figure reached and how accurate is it? He also said that all married women will be eligible to apply for unemployment assistance subject to their being capable of, available for and genuinely seeking employment in the same way as other applicants and to their satisfying the means test. Some criterion should be established whereby those genuinely seeking work could be identified. This has been a bone of contention at oral appeal hearings and between appeals officers and applicants for unemployment assistance. If an applicant for unemployment assistance is registered with the local manpower office and is in touch with them on a weekly basis and provides certificates from at least three employers that he or she is genuinely seeking employment such evidence should be taken as clear proof that they are seeking work. Regulations should be drawn up in the manner I have suggested.

The Minister seems to be concerned that the system in the Department might break down if too many people are brought within the ambit of the scheme. In about 20,000 cases of married men in receipt of benefit with wives in employment or also on benefit their entitlements would be affected and the Minister proposes to take steps to alleviate the effects of the revision in many of these cases. Measures should be taken to ensure that is not necessary. A section should be inserted in the Bill stating that married couples should not be in receipt of an income from the Department of Social Welfare which would be less than what they had before this Bill was introduced.

This legislation is the most complicated I have come across during my 19 years in the House. I have met Deputies who say they found it easier to understand many a Finance Bill. I agree with the proposal that details of the Bill should be published in the newspapers in simple terms and without any ambiguity. This is very important from the point of view of those on unemployment assistance and for married men and women who may want to get their own portion of the assistance. It must be spelt out clearly so that the public will understand what is involved and assess, before they make an application, the full implications of such application if granted. That is important. The Minister said he would provide alleviating measures in about 11,000 cases which would wholly or partly eliminate losses. He said that was a reasonable balance. It should not be necessary to provide alleviating measures. These measures should be enshrined in the legislation. The Minister admits that there will be a reduction in entitlement in a small number of cases and that it is an inevitable consequence of making married men and women equal before the social welfare code. If that is the intention it should not be necessary to have a reduction in entitlements. The Bill must be strengthened considerably in that regard.

The Minister said that deciding officers must satisfy themselves in the light of certain broad criteria that a claimant is available for work. The criteria must be laid down and, as I have suggested, it should be mainly that the applicant prove he is in close touch with his local manpower office and that he should provide a letter from each of two or three employers in his area certifying that he is genuinely seeking work. Such documentation should be regarded as absolute proof of the applicant's genuineness in seeking work. However, I am concerned that if the criteria is too strict this measure will be used as a device to remove from the live register people who should be on it and who should be in receipt of employment assistance. None of its provisions should be used for that purpose.

I agree generally with the principle of the Bill, which is the provision of equality of treatment in the social welfare code for men and women, but I am concerned about certain provisions especially in the context of the efficiency of the Minister and his Department in considering applications from married women for unemployment assistance and in deciding on appeals from those aggrieved by the decisions of appeals officers.

Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach and at the Department of Justice (Mrs. Fennell)

I welcome this opportunity to express my support for the Social Welfare (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, 1984, which, will give effect to the EC directive on equal treatment for men and women in matters of social security. In giving equal rights and entitlements to men and women in the schemes of disability benefit, unemployment benefit, unemployment assistance, old age and retirement pensions, invalidity pensions and occupational injuries benefits, it will eliminate the remaining areas of our social welfare code which are discriminatory and these all relate to the entitlement of married women. Married women, at present, receive lower rates of benefit than men, can only receive unemployment benefit for a maximum of 312 days as against 390 days generally and have conditions applied to them in the matter of adult and child dependants which are considerably less favourable than those applying to married men. Also, married women will be entitled to apply for assistance in the same way as other unemployed people who are capable of, available for and genuinely seeking employment. Up to this they would not have been eligible unless they were living apart from and not being supported by their husbands. About 46,000 married women will benefit from the higher rates of payment and enhanced entitlements which will be available on the introduction of the equal treatment measures: the vast majority would be on disability or unemployment benefit and they stand to gain increases of the order of £4 to £5 per week, quite apart from the effects of the other proposals enabling them to qualify for increases for dependants.

However, the most significant aspect of the Bill for women in general is the revision of the concept of dependency that it introduces. The general framework of social welfare schemes has remained unchanged for a long time and the underlying concept with it, that the husband was the breadwinner and head of the household and the person to whom the increases of benefit in respect of his wife and children should be paid. Any married woman living with her husband was regarded as his dependant and any children were also regarded as his dependants whether the wife was working and contributing to their support. It was only where the husband was incapable of self-support through mental or physical infirmity that the wife could claim him as her dependant.

It is easy to see how this approach was appropriate and legitimate in times past when it was most exceptional for married women to take up employment outside the home. Today, it results in many thousands of married men being paid adult dependant allowances in respect of wives who are either in employment or receiving a social welfare payment in their own right.

Apart from the necessity to apply genuine and uniform criteria of dependency in all cases to avoid what in effect amounts to double payments, such criteria are also desirable in ensuring that women have equal status in all areas of society, particularly in those in which the State plays an influential role.

The decision by the Government that, in future, adult dependant increases will be payable only in respect of spouses who are being wholly or mainly maintained by beneficiaries is an important milestone not only for the many married women who currently stand to benefit directly but for all married women. As the Working Party on Women's Affairs and Family Law Reform, which I chaired, commented in their report Agenda for Practical Action, which was recently published:

The practical substance underlying the principle of equal treatment is recognition that the concept of a husband as the sole or invariable breadwinner of the family is no longer one that applies universally in our society.

Equal treatment in statutory social welfare schemes is, therefore, particularly welcome as a coming to terms with what is anyway a fact of life as well as constituting an important step in the attainment of equal opportunities generally for women.

In the interim report from the European Commission on the application of the directive, the Commission expressed the view that the "head of household" notion was incompatible with the principle of equal treatment and the abolition of discrimination and that the principle carried the implication of some sort of hierarchy between a married couple which was no longer in line with either the realities of society or the provisions of civil law.

In order to maximise on the benefits which the legislation is bringing, I would urge the Minister to ensure that the married women who now apply for assistance under it will be subjected to the same criteria of assessment which male applicants have to undergo. There is evidence at present that women applicants for unemployment assistance can be the victims, in certain circumstances, of a presumption that the female spouse is unavailable for employment where she has children.

The effects of the introduction of the new definition of dependency will be that in the vast majority of cases, that is, where only the husband works outside the home, there will be no change whatsoever in entitlement. But in the case where only the wife works outside the home, she will now be entitled to the full adult and child dependant increases so long as her husband is not on benefit and this could give married women with three children a gain of £51.10 a week compared with the present provisions. She would, in addition, receive an extra £4.50 on her personal rate. There will be offsetting gains and reductions in entitlement where both husband and wife are economically active but these will result in a more equitable balance of entitlements than heretofore.

Unfortunately, the new approach, though very desirable and commendable, will result in a loss for some families. These are cases where both husband and wife are at present separately entitled to social welfare payments. The overall net loss for such families will be about £20 per week. A worse situation and one about which I would be even more concerned, as Minister with responsibility for Women's Affairs, is where the husband is on benefit and the wife is presently working. For a couple in this situation with three children the legislative proposals before us could result in a reduction in flat rate benefit of up to £37 per week. The effect on that household of the reduction would depend largely on the wife's income from her employment. But if she is low paid the prospect of such a loss would be daunting and also she might find that by continuing to work she would be only marginally better off than if she were on benefit.

Any spouse who works more than 18 hours per week, or fewer than 18 hours per week but who is mainly dependent on that income is excluded as a dependant under the Bill. So, in addition to spouses who are in low paid employment, spouses in part time employment in excess of 18 hours, or who are mainly dependent on that part time work, might be tempted to surrender their employment if the other spouse is receiving unemployment or disability benefit. There might be women in full time employment who are tempted to opt for a part time employment of under 18 hours a week. I would recommend to anyone contemplating such action to take full account of the other benefits which they will be surrendering and not just assess their situation in terms simply of economic gain or loss. Conditions of employment attaching to full time work are substantially better than those for part time work. The short term monetary gain might not justify the fact that the employee is now outside the scope of certain protective legislation and, after a length of time, will also be ineligible for unemployment benefit and other security.

There might also be a tendency to drift into the black economy where remuneration would not be cognisable by the State. For similar reasons, I would strongly advise against anyone taking this course because, apart altogether from the moral aspect and the damage which it does to society in general, there is a very real danger for the person themselves in that such income is, invariably, precarious and unreliable.

It is hard to assess the number of married women who might be open to influence in the manner which I have just described. In research data from a report which I have commissioned only 44 per cent of the married women at work were in full time jobs, and nearly 40 per cent of all female part time labour was accounted for by catering and cleaning industries and retail businesses. Considering the notoriously low play levels in these areas, it can be seen that a substantial number of workers might be influenced.

I greatly welcome, therefore, the Minister's proposal to use the enabling powers contained in the Bill to mitigate the effects of the equal treatment provisions in cases where loss will occur. I understand that it is the Minister's intention to make regulations providing that where a spouse's earnings are below a figure of about £50 a week he or she will continue to be regarded as a dependant of the spouse who is claiming benefit, that no loss of benefit will follow and that he also intends to make a transitional payment of about £10 a week in cases where both spouses are separately drawing benefit when the new dependency conditions are introduced.

I also understand that about 20,000 families will be affected by the revised dependency conditions, that about 8,000 of these will benefit from the transitional payment and a further 3,000 will suffer no loss as the wife will continue to be regarded as a dependant. The remaining 9,000 or so will suffer some loss of income but I am assured by the Minister that in over half of these cases the wives have earnings of over £100 a week.

Whatever the difficulties of the implementation of this Bill it is important to remember that its purpose is to bring about a more equitable situation. I welcome it not only for the 46,000 women who stand to benefit immediately but as another step forward in the road to equality of opportunity and status for women in every segment of our society.

Mrs. Barnes

I welcome the belated introduction of this Bill. The Minister has expressed his concern at our having waited so long for it. This Bill is based on an EC directive of which we were aware at national and European level for over six years. I can understand the Minister's dilema when confronted with the task of bringing about this equality legislation. What worries me is that while administration after administration were aware of this directive and of the huge discrimination against married women with regard to work and social welfare contributions, nothing was done within this Legislature to bring about more equity and justice for married women. These women were not seeking any thing more than that being given to everybody else, which was that, having paid their contributions like all other workers, they would not be discriminated against at every level.

They were being denied benefit to which they had contributed as workers. Not alone were women denied their right financially by the way of benefit, in that they had paid their full contributions as workers, but such discrimination was allowed to prevail to the extent that women were not regarded as workers in their own right but rather as dependants only, and that in the eyes of society and of the law. I should like to record my disappointment that successive administrations did not take the necessary steps to introduce such legislation. I heard Members deplore the fact that such discrimination was allowed to prevail with regard to women in our society although women's organisations, women trade unionists and, in fairness, some male workers also had lobbied continuously.

Even when the deadline for the implementation of the directive had been reached, presumably because nothing had been prepared over the years, the implications for the present Minister were even greater. Had there been an attempt made to cope with the problems over the years, then the delay in the introduction of this Bill would not have occurred. Neither should I like to think that we would constantly rely on EC directives to ensure that women here are given equal status and rights. I am sure other Members would join me in saying that it is a shame that we must await a European directive to force us to remove obstacles and discriminations against half of our population.

The provisions of this Bill raise many questions in the area of women at work and woman's wages generally. I am aware that the Minister has been conscious of the difficulties with regard to low income families brought about by the introduction of this Bill. I would hope that its introduction would highlight two areas of great concern to all of us in this House, the first being the number of families living on the breadline where the granting of equality to women would affect such low income families because such women are earning so little outside the home or form part of households living on social welfare. This highlights something we must be constantly watchful of with regard to the creation of a more just society. We should strive constantly not to have families existing on such a borderline that when we introduce legislation to effect equality or remove discrimination people find themselves worse off or in a poverty trap.

I hope all of us will continue to raise the question of the low earnings of women, who work at home. Some women's earnings are so low they find they are placed just above the borderline of subsidisation or of having a decent wage in their own right. A husband at present in receipt of a dependent wife's allowance may well bring such pressure to bear on his wife that if they are going to be worse off or only marginally better off the wife may be psychologically forced to leave her work rather than deprive the head of the household and the household itself of that allowance.

I know the Minister is working toward the concept of social welfare contributions that will allow people, regardless of the number of hours they work per week, contribute on a percentage or proportionate basis, so that they will be social welfare contributors and recipients in their own right. Part of the trap in which women are caught with regard to opportunities for work is that employers consistently employ women in jobs where they are deliberately kept working below a certain number of hours so that they cannot become social welfare contributors. Not alone does it not give them the security and full regard and status of a worker, but it also has huge implications in that they do not perhaps receive sickness pay and they do not have benefits if and when they are laid off for any length of time. All of this contributes to the low image and self-esteem women are asked to accept.

I hope this debate will bring home to people the principle of this Bill which is that, regardless of the implications and the complications for certain areas under the present social welfare code, and regardless of the history of our social welfare code which labelled women as dependants until now, women workers should get exactly the same rights as others. This is not an attack on male householders and we are not tearing down the social fabric of society. Too often any advance made by women has been turned into such an implication. We must never forget that the principle here is to restore a right to women which they have been denied. They have been penalised financially and psychologically for years.

The Minister of State for Women's Affairs referred to the fact that by consistently keeping women working at a low level both in relation to hours at work and in relation to social welfare, and by making it difficult for them to be recipients of social welfare benefits, we are forcing more and more women into the black economy. This is of no help to women because it means they can be and are exploited, and it does not help the country. We should encourage every worker to make a full contribution both in tax and social welfare contributions.

The Minister said we must remove the fundamental existing inequalities suffered by married women and give them the same entitlements as others. In doing that, we must make sure that all the other overlapping discriminations and inequalities are removed. The Minister was right to refer to the fact that for many years, as more and more married women moved out into the workforce, they found themselves caught in the situation in which it has been increasingly difficult to prove their entitlements for the discriminatory benefits allowed to women.

There was an acceptance by people questioning them that married women, especially married women with children, regardless of the ages of the children, were not genuinely seeking employment. I am sure the Minister is aware that there was this type of questioning and that until recently a separate form of questioning was used for married women which insisted that married women with children could not be genuinely looking for employment. We all know cases where women who had been working for ten, 15 or 20 years were questioned in a way which suggested that they were not genuinely looking for employment because they were married and their place was in the home and their role was to bring up children. When a woman appealed the decision she was sometimes required to place written evidence before a tribunal or the oral evidence of somebody, almost swearing that that person was looking after her children.

It is a most gratuituous insult to women and to mothers to assume that they would be irresponsible, and that they would race out to take jobs without first ensuring that a responsible person was minding the children. That is a huge insult to women especially when one considers the obstacles women have to overcome when they work outside of the home. There is an attitude that it is all right for women to work in low paid jobs as long as there are plenty of jobs, but that they should remember their place and get back to the kitchen as soon as the jobs become scarce. It is of interest that the only time we started to object to married women working outside the home was when they got an opportunity, because of the lifting of the marriage bar, to stay in jobs where their skills, education and training guaranteed them a higher rate for the job than that paid for unskilled labour.

Even in the midst of our huge recession and the backlash against women working, I do not see huge queues demanding that women give up their jobs as cleaners in the service industries and in areas that are skilled but which down through the years have been valued as women's work and therefore low paid. When men start to move into these areas and start trying to improve conditions and levels of payment, we will see some kind of equality of opportunity. I would like the legislation to concentrate on that fact and reinforce what the Employment Equality Act hopes to do, which is to ensure in the area of social welfare contributions that a woman should not be questioned differently from a man with regard to her gender, domestic responsibility or career opportunities. When we do this — I wish interviewers would realise this — we are contravening the Employment Equality Act. Unfortunately, a great number of employers and employment agencies do not seem to have recognised that, therefore they feel that not alone can they treat women as having less right to work but women should not be allowed to work at all if they have children. Up to now when we allowed them work we made sure that they did not get the same benefits as men from the various contributions they made as workers.

Debate adjourned.