Mary Lou McDonald
Question:462. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth when the new National Strategy for Women and Girls for 2022 to 2025 will be published. [47944/22]
View answerTuesday, 4 October 2022
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Written answers
Significant advances have been made in recent years to address inequality in Irish society, with the Government’s commitment to fostering a diverse, inclusive and equal society re-affirmed through the Programme for Government commitments to achieve social solidarity, equality of opportunity and economic equity for all.
My Department leads on cross-government policy to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, and the National Strategy for Women and Girls 2017-2021 has provided us with a whole-of-Government framework through which women’s empowerment continues to be advanced.
Some recent achievements in gender equality in my Department include:
- The enactment of the Gender Pay Gap Information Act 2021 which requires employers with over 250 employees to report on their gender pay gap. Reporting is beginning this year.
- Significant advances have been made in the provision of family leaves, including the extension of Parent’s Leave and Benefit to seven weeks for each parent and extending the entitlement to Adoptive Leave to fathers through the Family Leaves and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2021.
- I will also shortly introduce to the Houses of the Oireachtas the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill to transpose the remaining aspects of the EU Work Life Balance Directive including the right of workers to Carers' Leave of five working days per year, and providing workers who are parents of children up to 12 years old, and carers under the Directive, with a right to request flexible working arrangements. The Bill will also extend the current entitlement to breastfeeding breaks from six months to two years.
- Provisions for the introduction of Domestic Violence Leave to enable persons experiencing domestic violence to have time off work, including to attend court to secure orders against the person perpetrating such violence are been developed and will be introduced as part of the Bill at Committee Stage.
- Other ongoing work includes the establishment of an Interdepartmental Network in 2021, co-chaired by my Department and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, to implement gender and equality budgeting. The group will facilitate the embedding of the Equality Budgeting Initiative across all Government departments, and guide its continued progress.
The Programme for Government “Our Shared Future” includes a commitment that the Government will develop and implement a new National Strategy for Women and Girls.
I will work with stakeholders to examine what has been achieved over the term of the strategy and consider how we can develop a new strategy which is even more robust and effective.
In this regard, my Department has commissioned a study to evaluate the processes for implementation of three equality strategies, which includes the National Strategy for Women and Girls as well as the Migrant Integration Strategy and the National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy. The study is expected to be published in early 2023, with work to build the new Strategies taking place thereafter.