Brendan Howlin
Question:9. Deputy Brendan Howlin asked the Taoiseach his plans for reconvening a Citizens' Assembly. [38646/18]
View answerWednesday, 3 October 2018
Questions (9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
Mary Lou McDonald
Question:10. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Taoiseach if will report on plans to establish a Citizens' Assembly in respect of gender equality. [38650/18]
View answer
Micheál Martin
Question:11. Deputy Micheál Martin asked the Taoiseach his plans to address gender equality issues in a Citizens' Assembly. [39541/18]
View answer
Joan Burton
Question:12. Deputy Joan Burton asked the Taoiseach if will report on plans to establish a Citizens' Assembly in respect of gender equality. [39680/18]
View answer
Richard Boyd Barrett
Question:13. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach his plans for reconvening a Citizens' Assembly. [39829/18]
View answerOral answers (17 contributions)
I propose to take Questions Nos. 9 to 13, inclusive, together. With regard to gender equality-----
The Taoiseach is beginning to sound like Donald Trump.
Can we please let the man answer?
With regard to gender equality in society, we must ensure that women have opportunities to participate fully and effectively in economic, public and political life. We need to see more women participating in decision-making roles across society so as to empower future generations of women and girls. As I have stated publicly, most recently at the Congress of Women's Caucuses on 10 September, I intend to bring forward proposals for the establishment of a new Citizens' Assembly to consider the issue of gender equality shortly. I would further propose that a Dublin Citizens' Assembly be specifically convened to consider the issue of directly elected mayors for Dublin and the form that should take. This is part of a comprehensive local government reform paper brought to Government by the Minister of State with responsibility for local government, Deputy John Paul Phelan.
The Taoiseach has informed us that he will reconvene a Citizens' Assembly to address the issue of gender equality. He may be aware that today the Seanad is dealing with Report and Final Stages of the Labour Party's gender pay gap reporting Bill to deal with the issue of gender equality. It is expected to pass this week. When it does, it will come back to the Dáil. The indication is that it is to be parked at that stage and the Government will introduce, at some future date, its own Bill which will have to start off the entire process again. Will the Taoiseach give consideration for allowing the Labour Bill, even if it needs to be amended, to become law this side of Christmas?
The Taoiseach also said yesterday that there would be a Citizens' Assembly specific to Dublin to deal with the possibility of a directly elected mayor for Dublin. That is not a bad idea. The Citizens' Assembly model has worked well.
Yesterday, I asked for a Citizens' Assembly to discuss the future ownership and control of schools, an issue very much on the agenda. I do not believe that one Citizens' Assembly on gender equality and a bespoke Dublin one should prohibit us from considering another one to address that particular issue.
On the proposal in respect of Dublin and other large cities and towns, we all value community and the development of strong community bonds. These are essential not just to the economic development and presentation of an area but to the quality of the lives of the people who live in it. Is the Taoiseach amenable not just to having a potentially elected mayor in the whole of the Dublin region but to have large towns, such as Swords, Blanchardstown and Dún Laoghaire, clearly represented by an identifiable mayoral figure?
On the Citizens' Assembly on gender inequality, does the Taoiseach propose to include in its terms of reference an indication in favour of quotas of women, as well as an indication in respect of narrowing and eliminating the gender pay gap? What we are getting at the moment is occasional participation by many women in a field. Then, when those exceptional women who have held that position pass on to something else-----
Thank you, Deputy. Time is up.
-----it just reverts to the male, stale and pale model that the Taoiseach and his Government have focused on so far in its term of office.
Will the Taoiseach outline when the Citizens' Assembly on gender inequality will actually be established and what timeframe would be involved? He has also stated that the gender pay gap should be one of the issues considered by the Citizens' Assembly. It remains one of the starkest reminders of the continued inequality faced by women in this State. The most recent figures available from the CSO, Central Statistics Office, indicate women are paid 14% less than men on average. I am sure the Taoiseach will agree that is a shocking statistic.
The Government announced it intends to introduce a gender pay gap information Bill. Sinn Féin would broadly welcome its intention but we do intend to introduce significant amendments to it in order to name and shame companies which fail to make information public and to shorten the timescale for its implementation. When will the Bill be introduced?
Domestic violence is another critically important issue. Before the summer, the Taoiseach informed the Dáil that the expert group considering a second SAVI, sexual abuse and violence in Ireland, report was nearing completion of its work. Will he confirm if it has completed its work? What is the timeframe for the completion of the study to identify the prevalence of sexual abuse and violence? When will it be published?
I agree with Deputy Burton on gender equality that there is a whole range of areas to be addressed, not just pay equality, such as under-representation of women, for example, in the senior echelons of universities and third level education which is quite striking. Where the Citizens' Assembly model has been effective is where the question put to it has been specific rather than covering a general area. Where its recommendations have had the most impact, it has been where the Oireachtas has had a complementary process for considering the issue. With the repeal of the eighth amendment, we all agree that work of the Oireachtas all-party committee was an essential part in ensuring that the final proposal considered by the people answered all reasonable questions and was soundly based.
On past recommendations, the assembly recommended that an electoral commission should be established with some urgency. This recommendation was recently supported by the committee looking at electoral integrity and disinformation. Will the Taoiseach explain why relatively straightforward but important legislation has been delayed so long? If one looks back, the then Minister, John Gormley, began drafting work on legislation in 2010. For some reason, however, this was stopped and not restarted, in spite of the following two Governments committing to enact the legislation. Will the Taoiseach clear up the mystery as to why there seems to be an incapacity and inability to have legislation on an electoral commission?
I found a memorandum I produced in 1996 for the then Government on it.
It is important to the credibility of the Citizens' Assembly and the Oireachtas.
I am not sure who Deputy Burton was referring to as being male, pale or stale. I am definitely not pale. When we talk about gender equality and gender diversity, whether in politics, the workplace or in any field of life, I do not think it is right to be diminutive or dismissive of anyone based on their gender, pallor or level of experience. I hope that when we talk about these issues, we will not use that kind of language about anyone, whether it is men or women, older people or younger people, white people or black people. I do not think that sort of language serves us well.
I agree with Deputy Martin's assessment on the Citizens' Assembly. It would very much tie in with Ms Justice Laffoy's assessment that the assembly works best when it is asked to examine specific proposals rather than wide-ranging issues, as well as having the input of the Oireachtas and people with experience of legislation, policy and politics. This can be useful and we saw that very much with the process around the eighth amendment.
The gender pay Bill was discussed at the Cabinet just this week. I would like to have the legislation passed in this calendar year if that can be done. It could be done with a bit of give and take and compromise. The best thing to do might be for the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, or the Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, to sit down with the Bill's sponsor, Senator Bacik, to see if it is possible to amend the Bill, as passed by the Seanad. With goodwill and compromise all around, that is achievable and we could get the legislation enacted by the end of the year and actually implemented next year. I would be very open to that.
On the Dublin Citizens' Assembly, there are many different ideas as to how local government should work. In Cork city, Limerick and Waterford, we will be offering people a plebiscite on a directly elected mayor with executive powers. Dublin is more complicated because it has four local authorities to which people feel differing degrees of attachment. The proposal put forward by Fianna Fáil and the Greens in the past was that the four authorities would stay with their own mayors and then there would be a super assembly with a super mayor. It would be a whole new layer of governance with a directly elected mayor over that. That might work.
My preferred model, however, is a different one which is more akin to London and Paris which I accept are much larger cities. It would be one where one would have a single Dublin authority, say a greater Dublin council, with a directly elected mayor over it. Then there would be many small borough councils to which people would feel they have an identity or connection, whether it is Swords, Lucan, Blanchardstown or Malahide.
I do not have the monopoly of wisdom on this nor do I claim to. That is why a Citizens' Assembly would be valuable in asking the people of Dublin what they think would work best. Deputy Eamon Ryan has proposed the assembly should also involve a number of councillors and politicians.
We will give consideration to that matter. The Constitutional Convention worked on that basis. On its make-up, two thirds of its members were citizens, while one third were politicians. Perhaps something along the lines of that model might work.
On proposals for other citizens' assemblies, we can only have so many at any one time. The plan is to approve before the end of the year the proposal for a Dublin citizens' assembly and a citizens' assembly on gender equality and have them meeting next year. I am totally open to suggestions for citizens' assemblies that might follow, but there is limited bandwidth in determining how many there can be at any one time. It is best to have one or two at a time properly, rather than trying to have four or five at the same time.
I was asked about the expert group on sexual violence. It has either completed its work or almost completed it. The Government will proceed with the new survey of gender based violence to follow up on the SAVI report from ten years ago. It was necessary to involve the Central Statistics Office, CSO, because we wanted to make sure it was accurate. As people are increasingly relying on the CSO to provide accurate statistics, it took a bit of time. Also, there was an issue with what would happen if somebody reported during the survey that they had been a victim of gender based or sexual violence because we now have many rules for mandatory reporting which would not have been in place ten years ago. There were many issues in that regard. For example, would the person carrying out the survey then have an obligation to make a report to the Garda and so on? Matters about which many people and I did not think have become issues, given that so much has changed in ten years. However, we intend to do it with the involvement of the CSO which will give everyone confidence that the results will be accurate.
On that point, does the Taoiseach know if the report has been published?
No.
Does the Taoiseach have any idea of when we can expect it to be published?
It will have to be brought to the Cabinet first.
Written Answers are published on the Oireachtas website.