asked the Minister for Health when his Department is expected to amend its policy whereby health authorities are not permitted as a general rule to offer permanent full-time posts to married women doctors and auxiliary married women workers in the health services.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Health Services Personnel.
13.
As I stated recently in reply to a similar question, a change in the practice of excluding married women from permanent appointments in medical posts under local health authorities could involve a major policy decision, since the same practice in regard to the employment of married women is followed in appointments to every class of office throughout the local authority service. This practice will no doubt come under the scrutiny of the commission that is being set up by the Government to inquire into the status of women in general. Pending the report of the commission there appears to be no pressing need for a review of the current practice in the local authority service.
Would the Minister accept that this attitude on the part of the Government is discriminatory, to say the least of it, and, to say the most of it, reactionary? Would the Minister agree this hardly reflects the Ireland of tommorrow, lauded by the Taoiseach in Waterford, the open, free society and so on?
I will not start a controversy on that.
No. The Government shoved it on to a commission.
As the House knows, a commission is being established to inquire into these matters.
We do not require a commission to discuss marriage bars and discriminatory bars of all kinds.