I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach for giving me time to raise this matter on the Adjournment. I have been seeking this debate since before the recess. I welcome the Minister of State to the House and wish her well. She has a very difficult job and it is not easy at this time to be in Government.
The Government are not only disregarding the needs of women but are treating them and their organisations with utter disdain. Since Fianna Fáil came into Government and hacked and slashed at the many structures that had been put in place for women in the previous four years they have created a great sense of anger among women throughout the country. The Taoiseach did a grave disservice to the Minister of State by so casually giving her the responsibility for the Council for the Status of Women. This was done by way of answer to a parliamentary question and could not have been anything but an afterthought. It is very regrettable that women are not to have the understanding, concern and support they got from the Coalition Government but are to be subjected to the cavalier treatment now being handed out to them by the Minister and her colleagues.
I regret that the Taoiseach did the Minister of State such a great disservice in the manner in which he treated her. No one yet knows what the parameters of her responsibilities are, what role she plays or what funding she is responsible for. It is a dreadful waste of a good and capable politician and an experienced Minister. I, like many others, have a great deal of regard for the Minister of State and know her commitment to women's rights which was demonstrated so clearly in her years as chairperson of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Women's Rights. No one could doubt her personal commitment and her own understanding of the expectations and the need of Irish women. However, I must address the Minister of State now, not in her personal capacity but in her capacity as Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach, with responsibility for the Council for the Status of Women.
I appeal to the Minister for understanding and openness to the issue of the funding being allocated for the coming year to the council. The funding as listed in the Book of Estimates for the coming year stands at £90,000. This is the sole and only funding being given directly to this women's umbrella group at a time when the lack of a special Government section such as we had in the last Government is being felt very severely. I do not want the Minister of State to say that in real terms she is maintaining and even improving the budget for the council on past years. This is not a valid claim. It is not valid because the work load, the output, the postage expenses and the numberous demands on the council's staff have multiplied greatly. This is because they are now carrying on a great deal of the work that had been done by the women's affairs section which had a very extensive staff.
Just because a Taoiseach decides he is not continuing the Government section for women's affairs does not mean that the needs and expectations that section dealt with should cease to exist. They do not, and they existed long before I came to office as the first Minister of State for Women's Affairs. It is not good enough to fund the Council for the Status of Women, which represents 60 women's organisations and 250,000 women, in a way that only allows them to tick over. Many of the delegates to the council seriously fear they will be the next organisation to be annexed to some Government Department as is the fate of the Health Education Bureau, An Foras Forbartha and the National Social Service Board.
This organisation, the Council for the Status of Women, is the only conduit for women now for information, representation and educational needs. What is to happen to all the crisis groups over which my section had discretionary funding in the past four years? These ranged from the Rape Crisis Centre — which exists, and there are centres throughout the country who depended heavily on the funding I gave them — to the AIM group which gives a free service to people with marriage difficulties and Women's Aid. The important work they do must continue to be funded. As this Department is not a funding Department there is nowhere they can now go.
In the past four years my office succeeded in financing a variety of small groups, many on a once-off basis. This was a lifeline to organisations, small or big, like the Widows' Association, Gingerbread, or small groups such as the Darndale Women's Group or the Tallaght Adult Education Group. The money now at the disposal of the Council for the Status of Women will not stretch to these groups. In fact, it will not even pay the postage on the many information booklets which were produced by the Women's Affairs section and have been transferred over to the council offices. It will not stretch to the very essential monitoring of the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women. It is, sadly, unable to meet the everyday needs of its delegate groups.
In this context accommodation problems have become so great that the meeting room used by groups for meeting in the city centre has now become an office. I suggest to the Minister for State that perhaps she would visit the council's offices and see how difficult their work has become. The knock-on effect of this accommodation problem has meant that their affiliate groups have to turn to hotels or other halls on a commercial basis for their regular meetings, AGMs or seminars, all of which were held previously in the main hall of the council's offices. I have to question the commitment for a women's house or centre, as my section was negotiating for them with the Office of Public Works prior to the election. I would suggest the Minister for State and, indeed, the Minister for Education, Deputy O'Rourke — both of whom are capable women — are being very badly let down by their male colleagues in office.
The suggestion was made by both the Taoiseach and the Minister for Industry and Commerce that all Government Departments were receptive to and supportive of issues relating to women. Did that mean that all special events or positive action programmes could be scrapped? I wonder was the Minister for State or, indeed, Deputy O'Rourke consulted before Deputy Reynolds scrapped, so ungenerously and unceremoniously, the successful Women in Enterprise programme? If the Minister for State was consulted, what did she say? Her male colleagues claim that such positive action measures are no longer needed. I feel it is not necessary to tell a long-time politician like the Minister for State that all Departments of State are men's affairs. Departments and issues of special interest to women do not get the profile or the priority that in many cases they deserve.
I must take this opportunity to inform the Minister for State of the general difficulties the Government programme of cutbacks is having on many women, particularly women in the lower socioeconomic grouping. I will give the Minister for State some instances. We no longer have St. James' Hospital with a maternity unit which had such an excellent record in its maternity services. Although it has dealt with one of the highest numbers of women from a low socio-economic background, it had the lowest perinatal mortality rate in Ireland, if not, indeed, in Europe. Because of its size it gave women great privacy. It gave women, who normally would not have a high level of comfort, a relative luxury for the length of time they were in hospital having a baby. One of the worrying aspects, apart from the fact that these mothers now have to go to the Coombe Hospital, is that the midwifery service that was so excellently available in St. James' seems to have disappeared. Nobody knows where the midwives who worked in that unit now are. Nobody can find out whether they have been absorbed into general nursing in St. James', or if they have left. It would be regrettable, indeed, if either happened. They are going to lose very valuable skills of midwifery which, I believe, is a diminishing skill.
Looking at the other three main maternity hospitals, we now see a policy where mothers are being discharged as soon as 48 hours after birth. This is happening in Holles Street, the Coombe and the Rotunda. This also includes single mothers who would have the degree of support and assistance of their husbands and families. This has meant that babies cannot get their PKU test done at that time. This is very serious because this test, as well as the BCG vaccination, is preventative medicine at its best. It is not valid to say that the mothers are asked and do respond when it is suggested that they come back for the PKU test because many of the mothers would not be aware of the importance of this test.
Added to this, in the Dublin area we have the closing down of the ante-natal clinics and the health centres in suburban areas. Tallaght, which has the same population as Limerick, now has no ante-natal clinic whatsoever. These were an enormous improvement for women, particularly poor women living in built-up areas, because the hospital personnel, in effect, came out to them. This meant that women were monitored regularly. The personnel dealing with them could identify problems in advance, such as postnatal depression. All of this has led to an outrageous waiting time for ante-natal visits due to the fact that women are coming in from suburban areas and the number of births that were being catered for at St. James's now have to be accommodated in the other hospitals. While we accept that this Government have got to make cutbacks and to restrict services in areas of the public service, one has to question how, for instance, they can have opted to effect pay increases for civil servants at the expense of poor women and their babies.
The maternity hospital in Lough-linstown is the latest hospital at risk. If this is taken away there will be no facility for maternity services between Holles Street and Wexford. This will leave a vast area of north Wicklow without the very good facilities that now exist in Lough-linstown.
These are all issues that are valid and important to women and affect them very closely. They are issues that are not being highlighted in the media and are not being brought forward to Government. I am taking the opportunity while the Minister of State is here to put these cases to her. I must stress at this time the severe burden that many women are carrying in their homes, in their communities, in the maternity hospitals, in the care of the aged and in voluntary community care — all due to the severe cutbacks in Government spending and also through unemployment and redundancies. This was borne out particularly today when we read the NESC report which was published yesterday. The NESC in a comment on the report prepared by Miss Síle O'Connor said, "Care in the community and family will not simply happen". They noted that families, for instance, may require access to services such as nursing, meals on wheels, home help and other services if they are to sustain care for dependent relatives in their homes and communities. But public health nursing is under the increasing pressure, the report notes. Home helps who provide meals and other services for people who are ill or incapaciated are available only to a minority. They said there is also marked under-provision of day centres, day hospitals and geriatric assessment units. Services for the physically and mentally handicapped have developed little since the start of this decade, the report says.
That catalogue of difficulties that many women are experiencing at the moment will, I hope, be noted by the Minister of State who is a mother. She is aware of the difficulties and problems of women in the community. Women have become accustomed, in the last Administration, to having an advocate in Government and a special section dealing with their queries, their representations and the need for information. It was a section that promoted positive action and influenced policies and the thinking of our State and semi-State bodies. I appeal to the Minister of State, knowing her awareness and understanding of the issues of women, to take on the role of advocate for women and to put some pressure on her colleagues. Without it, women and women's organisations will continue to go by the board.
