Yes. I move amendment No. 4:—
Before Section 10, to insert a new section as follows:—
(1) A woman civil servant shall have the right to retire on marriage.
(2) Any woman civil servant who shall have retired on marriage under this section shall have the right to re-enter the service under the same conditions as are prescribed for widows under Section 11.
The present Section 10 provides, with some exceptions not very clearly defined, for unestablished civil servants, that women civil servants are required compulsorily to retire on marriage, and that is the principle to which I have taken exception; and for that reason I have put down these amendments. I do not want to quote all the Articles of the Constitution which I quoted on the previous stage, but in Article 40 we are told that "All citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law." I notice with approval that the Minister for Justice in the Dáil the other day said—I am quoting from Volume 160 of the Official Report, No. 6, column 832—when introducing the Married Women's Status Bill, which will soon come before us:—
"The object of the Bill is to put married women in the same legal position as single women and men. In other words, it means to get rid once and for all of the disabilities under which married women at present suffer."
I notice that the Attorney-General, later in the Second Stage, quoted that paragraph with approval, when justifying the Government's motives in introducing that Bill. I suggest there is something unreal in asking that "all the disabilities from which married women suffer" shall be "got rid of once and for all" by an Act which is going through Dáil Eireann, while at the same time an Act which is going through the Seanad places married women under the necessity of retiring from the Civil Service upon marriage whether they like it or not. I would propose that she get the right to do so; but for the State to intervene and say: "She shall" seems to me to be placing her under a legal disability, and discriminating against the married woman, as opposed to other citizens, who are supposed to be "equal" in legal status before the law.
I notice, again, that the other day our delegate to the United Nations Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee rightly pointed out that on many points the status of Irish married women is better than that obtaining in other countries. The delegate was dealing specifically with the question of nationality rights after marriage, and in general she summed up the position by saying that "in Ireland the position of women is particularly favourable". In many cases that is true, but here is a piece of legislation in which we are giving continuance to a bad concept that has held sway too long in this country, that women shall be forced to retire from their positions on marriage if they are in State employment—because many married women do now in fact retain their posts in various enterprises, academic posts, and so on, which are not under State control.
It is just, as our Constitution says, that married women should not be forced "by economic necessity"—and that is the phrase in the Constitution —to work after marriage. That she shall not be forced by economic necessity—that is a good concept, even though in practice we may not always be able to ensure that it be enforced. I would suggest, however, that a married woman should have the right to decide for herself whether she will continue in employment or not, and that it should not be for the State to interfere so much in her private life as to say she shall not work in State employment after marriage.
Under Section 11 of this same Bill, we do allow a widow who was previously a civil servant under certain conditions to go back into the Service after the death of her husband. Some married women might like to retire from their posts for a period of years and perhaps to resume work, just as a widow is allowed to resume work in the Service, after her children are grown up, or perhaps at school, or possibly, in the case of a childless marriage, to go back to work at an earlier date. It is unwarranted interference with the life of the married woman, however, for the State to lay it down that she shall not work in State employment after she has married.
I believe that she, and not we, should have the right to decide. I should like the Minister if he is not accepting my amendment, if he is defending the older concept which is enshrined in the draft Bill before us, to say why the married woman should continue to be deprived of the right to make a choice for herself, as to whether she will continue in State employment or not after marriage.
On the Second Stage I stressed the loss to the country of much talent, skill, and service by this automatic dismissal on marriage of women teachers, Civil Service lawyers, doctors, dentists and so on. That is a very real loss especially in a country where we simply have not got enough qualified teachers for instance; yet we commit the extravagance of dismissing married women teachers who might be, perhaps, the best kind of teachers, dismissing them arbitrarily on marriage whether they want to go or not. My amendment does not say that they shall remain at work on marriage. It gives them to right to retire on marriage if they want to. My amendment expresses what ought to be the simple right of all citizens, of all human beings, to make decisions in their own personal lives for themselves, and not to have them imposed upon them by the State. We hear a lot in this country about "State interference" in family life, State interference in this and that. Here we have a case where we have an opportunity of removing a kind of State interference in the life of married women citizens, who, in my contention, ought to be treated in exactly the same manner as other citizens.