Employment Equality Bill, 1975: Second and Subsequent Stages.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Minister for Labour (Mr. M. O'Leary)

This measure before the Seanad this afternoon is the succeeding measure to the Equal Pay Act, 1974, and one of the main objectives of this Bill is the establishment of an Employment Equality Agency. The objective of the Bill is to provide for equal opportunity in employment and it proposes the elimination of discrimination on grounds of sex. It tackles the basic inequality between men and women in our society. It seeks to confront the demarcation which exists in our industry between the jobs available to men and those available to women. At present women take the lowliest jobs, the most menial tasks. I have always believed it is the status of women's jobs, the kind of work they perform in industry, more than anything else determines their place in the economy and in society.

It would be my hope that this legislation will provide women with equal opportunity with men to realise their full potential in employment in relation to access to all jobs, training, promotions and working conditions. In the past it was not accepted that women had the same right of choice to pursue or continue in the career of their choice, whether married or single. While many women still choose to pursue a family role, and they are quite free to pursue that role, there has been an upward trend in participation by women in the labour market. This is also occurring elsewhere.

There has been a notable increase in two groups in particular. Those in the child-bearing years are increasingly remaining in the labour market, and those in middle years with grown children are returning to the job market in greater numbers. Yet the participation rate of women is low compared to other EEC countries. with only 13.5 per cent of married women working, compared with 67 per cent in Britain, and 60 per cent in West Germany. While this could be cited as proof of discrimination against women, we must not overlook the fact that we have not the same traditional pattern as either Britain or West Germany. For historical and social reasons the entry of women into industry here is a more recent phenomenon than in either of the two countries I mentioned.

Prejudice undoubtedly exists against women in industry. They constitute 26 per cent of the working population but this figure is not comparatively reflected in the number of women who hold decision-making positions in any sphere of activity, whether in politics, the public service, trade unions, or any other area of administration. Even in occupations which are predominantly female we find that the top administrative posts are held by men. In the professions, women represent only 1 per cent of engineers, 2 per cent of accountants, 3 per cent of architects, and 7 per cent of the legal profession.

We are all familiar with the explanations usually advanced for the absence of women from managerial positions. There is plain prejudice, mainly male prejudice, and there is the narrow concept of women's role, the effects of single sex schooling and, of course, the range of subjects which girls have traditionally studied at school. There is also the stereotyped image women have of their role in society and the way education and other institutions cater for that traditional stereotyped role. A policy of greater involvement of women in managerial positions must be developed. Part of the remedy for this situation lies in the improvement of education and training provided for women before they enter employment. The legislation before the House is intended to remedy the imbalance which now exists.

The Bill will provide women with equal opportunity with men to realise their full potential in employment when it comes to selection for a job, training within the job, or promotion, or working conditions. The Bill will make it unlawful to discriminate against women in employment and will provide for enforcement procedures under which women who feel they have been discriminated against can avail of legal remedies. It will be no longer possible to segregate jobs, managerial or otherwise, into men's jobs and women's jobs. The Bill will permit "positive" discrimination in favour of women in regard to the provision of special training. Positive discrimination of this nature which is necessary if equal opportunity in employment is to become a reality will be permitted under section 15 of the Bill.

The Bill defines discrimination as arising in four ways: first, direct discrimination where a woman is treated less favourably than a man; secondly, where a married person is treated less favourably than an unmarried person; thirdly, indirect discrimination where a condition or requirement is applied equally to men and women but the requirement is such that a considerably smaller proportion of women than of men could comply with it and the requirement is not essential to the job; and lastly, where a person is victimised because of pursuing the legal right to equal treatment which this Bill confers.

Where a person is dismissed for pursuing a claim either to equal treatment under this Bill, or equal pay under the Act of 1974, she would be entitled to reinstatement in her old job, or re-engagement in her former job, or in a suitable alternative position, or an award of monetary compensation up to a maximum of two years pay.

Having defined discrimination, the Bill then sets out the employment situations in which it is unlawful to discriminate, namely, recruitment, training, promotion and working conditions. While the Bill is aimed primarily at discrimination by employers, it will also make unlawful discrimination in activities which are related to employment, such as discrimination by organisations concerned with the provision of training courses as well as placement and guidance services provided by employment agencies. Admission to membership and the benefits provided by trade unions and employer organisations is also covered under the Bill, for the reason that such membership can affect eligibility and prospects for employment. Discriminatory advertisements, of course will also be unlawful.

While the Bill is intended, therefore, to deal with discrimination against women in employment, it will apply equally where discrimination is practised against men, whom we must not forget either. It is my intention in this Bill that the coverage should be as comprehensive as possible and, consequently, exclusions from the scope of the Bill should be kept at a minimum. I have, however, accepted the case for the exclusion of employments listed in section 12: the Defence Forces, the Garda Síochána, the Prison Service, and employment in a private household.

The Labour Court will have a central role in the enforcement of the provisions of the Bill. Equality officers of the court have been given various powers, including the power to require persons to furnish information. It has been represented to me that employers should not be required to disclose, for the purposes of the investigation authorised under this Bill, any references or reports relating to the character or suitability of any person seeking employment. I have accepted that this should be so and provision is made accordingly.

The most important aspect of this Bill will be the establishment of the Employment Equality Agency. The Employment Equality Agency will have both an investigative and overseeing role. It will have the function in the public interest of identifying and seeking out areas of discrimination where they exist. It will also have an enforcing function to ensure that the terms of the legislation apply in practice.

To achieve this, the agency will carry out formal investigations and will have power in connection with these investigations to require the production of information. The agency will then either recommend changes in practices or issue non-discrimination notices requiring those who are infringing the provisions of either of the Acts to cease such unlawful practices. The agency, of course, will have the sole right to institute proceedings in cases of discriminatory advertisements. Where advertisements in their format or language break the provisions of the legislation the agency can institute proceedings. I hope the agency will have an important role as educator in generally promoting equality of opportunity. It will be a source of information about legislation and about the remedies available to those who suffer, or feel they suffer, discrimination and it will conduct research into the areas in which the law applies as well. Guidelines and codes of good practice in the light of investigations carried out by the agency will be published.

The need for such an educative central organising agency is generally accepted. The agency will consist of a chairman and ten ordinary members to be appointed by me. Of the ordinary members, two will be workers' members, two employers' members and, of the remaining six members, three will be representative of women's organisations. The staff of the agency will be civil servants. A similar agency, the Equal Opportunities Commission, was established in the United States in 1972. In Britain the Equal Opportunities Commission of 1975 carries out similar functions.

I would hope the agency will monitor progress towards the elimination of discrimination in employment under the Equal Pay Act and, based on this legislation, make recommendations to the Government of the day for any amendments that may be considered necessary. The agency will, of course, be independent of the Government in its work.

In commending this Bill to the House, I am fully aware that the law can never entirely prevent discrimination. Equal opportunity in employment will not be easily achieved. I am confident that by laying down statutory rules for the way people should behave and providing backing for women to take positive and collective action to get their rights we move closer to the goal of eliminating discrimination. The implementation of this Bill and the Act of 1974 will require reforms fundamentally affecting society which cannot be expected to happen merely as a result of the law being enacted. The full realisation of equality between men and women will necessitate changes in deep-rooted assumptions and attitudes about women's and men's roles and in social and economic arrangements. But the law is a beginning.

The demand of women for equal opportunity in all areas of employment is a just demand. For society as a whole the implementation of the Bill must represent a significant advance by simply getting rid of a system of discrimination which is wasteful of talent and ability.

I commend the Bill to the House.

Mr. Dolan

Naturally, we welcome this Bill. This is the first time since I became a Member of this House that I have ever seen the Minister with three female advisers. That may be an indication that they are catching up on equal rights. The Bill is a follow on of another one regarding equal pay which was introduced some years ago. That Bill was passed and, as the country knows, nothing happened about it. The Minister piloted that piece of legislation through with a great furore but, like many other things done by the Government, it ended there and nothing happened. All down the line the discrimination that existed before the Bill was passed has not been remedied since. That is typical of the type of window-dressing approach of the Government and of this Minister in particular. The Minister has professed his great concern regarding the equal rights of women, brought in Bills such as the one before the House, but then did nothing about the problem.

We feel that women should get their proper place in society. In all the professions and in various industries many women have distinguished themselves, not alone at national level but at international level. That has been a feature all over the world. If women were downtrodden in the past it may be because of the attitude that many women adopted. Even in the history of the world many eminent women came to the top, but when in power and with all the facilities at their disposal, they did not fall over backwards to implement the legislation necessary to give equal status to women. My party some time ago removed the marriage ban imposed on women in the teaching profession. We felt that by doing that we were doing a great service to women in that profession. Many parts of rural Ireland at that time were deprived of the services of trained teachers and the fact that trained female teachers who were married were allowed to remain on was a great advantage in that respect. The same applies in other areas.

The Minister made reference to the educational system we had in the past. I suppose it is true that in many cases the educational system discriminated in certain ways against females. The reason may be that in many areas boys and girls are separated in different schools. That has existed in many parts over a long period. The advance of community schools and the vocational education system has done a lot to remedy that. Boys and girls can now work side by side in secondary schools and vocational schools as they do in universities and colleges of technology. That is a good thing. Men now see that women, given the same opportunities, are equally as good and, in many cases, superior to the men folk. At the same time we should not always overlook the fact that most women must spend most of their time in their homes to look after their families. There is no substitute in any home for a mother and, despite what may have been said in the past, it is true to say that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. It is important for a nation that the mothers of families should as far as possible remain with their children in those formative years. That does not mean that their work is not equal or, indeed, superior to that carried out in many of the professions. The work of such women should be recognised and if possible the Minister should consider ensuring that such women are remunerated where necessary.

Today we are witnessing more Government window-dressing. We know that all this concern about providing equal employment opportunities for women is nonsense as far as this Government are concerned. We can judge their sincerity by their record. They are unable to provide equal opportunities for them or to give them equal status and we know that there are roughly 150,000 people unemployed. These are the people the Minister says he has great concern for. Some ladies are not entitled to have their names on the unemployment register and are not paid unemployment assistance. What type of equal treatment is that for women? Why does the Minister not look behind and in front of him? Why does he not concern himself with the realities of the situation, that he and the Government during the last four and a half years did nothing to remedy that grave injustice. The Minister came in with a grandiose approach and told us what he was doing and what he had done regarding equal pay. He came in with this grand title of a Bill, Employment Equality Bill. If there was employment available here that would be a fact but there is no employment and no effort was made by the Government over the last four and a half years to produce any employment for the ladies or the men folk. Everybody knows that there are long queues outside labour exchanges and that the women the Minister is talking about cannot even draw unemployment assistance.

Ruairí Quinn

At least they are still in the country and have not been forced to emigrate.

Mr. Dolan

They are, thanks to Fianna Fáil, who encouraged them to stay. Fianna Fáil founded the factories even though some people said rabbits would be running around them. They made our people industrial minded and tried to provide employment for them. Senator Quinn feels he is a tremendously able person. He will have plenty of time to talk here and I will not interrupt him. He will not in any way ruffle me by his interruptions. His slick remarks do not cut any ice with me. He can use them on the Minister and let him settle the problems I have mentioned regarding those young women who do not get employment assistance with the Minister. They are the facts and I can understand Senator Quinn getting ruffled when he hears them on the eve of an election. I hope he will explain that to the many female audiences he may have in Dublin city. Let him answer the question why they are not treated equally under the Labour Party.

Mr. Yeats

If he can collect an audience.

Mr. Dolan

They will probably put an audience of some kind together and issue some statement to the paper, but they cannot deny the facts. We have had one Bill after another being introduced, rushed through both Houses but nothing being done about the problems. It is a charade to pretend to the women that something is being done.

It was wrong of the Minister, who has been using his own profile a lot recently, to ask the people to believe that he was going to give them £20 for everybody employed. This great Minister, who says he is going to do all these things for the people, should explain to the women of Ireland, who amount to about 53 per cent of the population, why he and the Government do not implement Acts passed by both Houses regarding equal pay. Why is he putting up this window-dressing when he has no intention of implementing the terms of the Bill?

Miss Owens

Having listened to the last contribution I begin to wonder how long Senator Dolan is a member of the Fianna Fáil Party. I believe he is a long time a member of that party.

Mr. Dolan

All my life.

Miss Owens

One would think from his contribution that he joined it about four years ago. I do not mean that in any disparaging way.

Mr. Dolan

I am not like some of those in the Labour Party. Those who join Fianna Fáil join for life. They do not run from one party to another, like some of Senator Owens's friends.

Miss Owens

I first became active in the women's movement in 1963. I do not need to remind Senators on the opposite side who was in power in that year or which party formed the Government here for the majority of years since we got our independence. In those years up to 1963 I never heard anything about the discrimination against women which existed before and since the foundation of the State. I submit that Fianna Fáil Governments had ample time to do something about it. For four years I was a member of an ad hoc committee of women who were trying to pressurise the Government to set up a commission on the status of women. We succeeded in 1971.

Mr. Dolan

What did the Senator do about the problem since?

Mr. Yeats

Fianna Fáil established the commission.

Miss Owens

I will answer that later. On unemployment assistance, discrimination against women has existed in this State as long as the State has been in existence. The first move towards a removal of that discrimination happened in the budget of 1977 when we reduced the qualifying period from 52 weeks to 26, and yet Senator Dolan said we have done nothing. He said nothing happened about equal pay. I would suggest to Senator Dolan, and to Senators opposite who wish to contribute in the same way, that he is not aware how much progress has been made towards equal pay.

I am aware of Senator Yeats's work in Europe on that, and I should like to pay tribute to him for that, but there has been considerable improvement in the equal pay position in Ireland. A vast number of employers, who would not be what one would call well organised labour employment, have conceded equal pay as a result of legislation which is on the Statute Book. I criticised that measure when it was going through the House as being inadequate, but in many ways it is far superior to the British Act we have heard a lot about. Our definitions are infinitely better and have been proved to be so. Senator Yeats, as an objective viewer of that situation, will accept that our definition of equal pay for work of equal value is far superior to equal pay for like work which they have in Britain.

The Minister, in his opening remarks, made the following statement:

The full realisation of equality between men and women will necessitate changes in deep-rooted assumptions and attitudes about women's and men's roles and in social and economic arrangements. But the law is a beginning.

That is the basis. The law is only a beginning but to-date we did not have much of a beginning. In this House I do not think we have to take our political stances that much. It is a beginning and one which we should welcome, but it requires a complete change in attitudes, deep-rooted attitudes which women, in many respects, were not aware of until the suffragette movement happened for a short while. Then something went to sleep. Belatedly, in postwar years, we began to realise just how we were discriminated against.

I do not want to be very critical of men because they have had it their way. People are inclined to assume that once that happens one should continue having it that way. There is a deep-rooted discriminatory attitude against women, not just in Ireland but throughout Europe and the world. It is very hard to define the reasons why this has existed. If one looks back to very ancient cultures—for instance, the ancient Egyptian culture—one does not find women in this subsidiary role. The ancient Greek culture, in fact, in certain aspects gave women a more dominant position than any western democracy does today. The effect of the spread of Christianity, an ethic we nearly all generally believe in, did not or was not for the betterment. A lot of this attitude developed unconsciously in that it was handed down from generation to generation, transmitted from parents to their daughters and to their sons. Simone De Beauvoir, in her Second Sex, probably explained it better than anyone else when she talked about the environmental theory and how women, or a girl or baby daughters are streamed in one certain role in life and the sons are streamed differently. What we are talking about is a fundamental change in attitude not just of women but of men.

Today we are focusing in on a particular aspect of this discrimination in employment. When we debated what is colloquially called the equal pay Act, which is specifically the Anti-discrimination (Pay) Act, it was mentioned by both sides of the Houses that equal pay legislation of itself would do little to remove the inbuilt discrimination against women in employment. If we look at the experience of other countries who had equal pay legislation of itself that is quite clear. There are many ways employers can find loopholes in equal pay legislation, even the most tightly drafted legislation. We have had a tradition in Ireland of having women's work and men's work. Even with the most enlightened job evaluation schemes it would be very hard for any union, organisation, or any individual to establish equal value when there are two separate streams. We all felt at that stage that the twin Act, the one before us today in Bill form, should be introduced speedily because without the other one would not be effective.

This Bill has been a long time in circulation and has been radically changed from the time it was initated. I pay credit to the Minister for the fact that he was prepared to receive representations and listen to various groups, many of them who represented women's organisations, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, the Women's Representative Committee and our own women's group in the Labour Party. All of them would accept that what is before the Seanad is a vast improvement on what was first tabled in 1975. This I welcome. It is an indication that the Minister is prepared to listen to people who have studied and learned from what happened in other countries and implement suggestions where feasible. Therefore, I welcome the introduction of this Bill. It gives us the basis—I do not think it gives any more because we do not change attitudes overnight—to operate to change these attitudes. It gives certain powers which are very welcome.

The Bill, in its present form, is generally acceptable. There are some aspects of it which the Congress of Trade Unions would like to be strengthened but it is generally accepted by the women's organisations, by the Commission on the Status of Women and by the women's advisory committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. We have learned that the Americans were to the front in this type of legislation. I do not intend reciting how this came about because there were rather peculiar circumstances in America when they passed Title Seven of the 1964 Act. The reason why women were included in that was basically because it was an anti-racist proposal. Women were included almost by accident and through the influence of one very strong American Senator. Title Seven has been extended considerably under the 1972 amendment. The facts are there for anybody who wishes to look them up as to the effect that had on women in employment in America. Equally, we have seen the operation of the Equal Opportunities Commission in England and the Sex Discrimination Act, 1975.

It is fair to say that there is some disappointment about the present Bill in that it deals only with employment. The British Sex Discrimination Act, 1975, is much wider in what it covers. We deal specifically with employment and we do not deal with discrimination which positively exists in other areas. It exists in education and in the social welfare code. I hope we will shortly be in line with EEC proposed legislation to cover discrimination in those areas. We have an EEC directive dealing with equal opportunities in employment which this legislation is broadly in line with. Senator Yeats may correct me on that but I served on a committee in Europe which drew up the initial proposals for the directive. We are broadly in line with it. However, as a society we should certainly gear ourselves towards more comprehensive legislation dealing with discrimination.

Might I further add to the case I am making by backing it up with a quotation from the report of the Commission on the Status of Women, published in 1973, which is:

244. Our recommendations on equal pay in Chapter 3, will, we believe, be of relatively little value to women in the long term if they are denied equality of access to certain jobs or if they do not have the some training or promotion opportunities in employment as men.

The training and promotion opportunities are crucial to what we are talking about. For many years there was no possibility or relatively none for training for women. Women could not become crafts persons. Now we have women folk with an affirmative action programme. Basically, one of the main tenets of any legislation like this is that one has to have the possibility of affirmative action programmes. One cannot wipe away centuries of discrimination without taking positive action to remove it. It is not good enough to say: "There is the opportunity, take it." One has to have affirmative action programmes. I would have liked to have seen more possibility for that action under the terms of the present proposals in the Bill. However, we do have some training and AnCO have a positive and affirmative action programme and we have a special appointment in that area. It has not achieved the success we would have all liked, part of the trouble being that it had to break down traditional attitudes between parents and employers. We have started and I hope that in the next ten years we will have made a great change in that situation in the crafts and skills sphere, an area which was denied by all people, including the workers side, to women for many years.

Equally, the Commission on the Status of Women pointed out one of the possible ways of avoiding the implementation of equal pay which I mentioned earlier in that one sets up separate grades for women and for men. This happened very acutely in 1971 or 1972 in the ESB. Up to that time women were not recruited into the clerical grade at the level of leaving certificate. When we managed to get that removed, shortly afterwards they set up a separate structure. This is referred to also in the commission's report. Equally, they recommended that to make this type of anti-discrimination legislation positive one had to have some form of an agency which would monitor and implement it.

I particularly welcome the proposal about the agency in the Bill, the powers and functions of which are set out to a degree. It starts at section 34. This is crucial to the whole operation of the Bill. Senator Dolan mentioned that it was easy to pass legislation and then do nothing about it but these proposals will ensure that no Government does nothing about it.

I would like to see this agency staffed with dynamic people. It is no criticism of any civil servant that I ask the Minister if he would look at the staffing arrangements which now have been introduced in the labour relations agency in the North of Ireland because that seems to be in a position to operate much more independently. It would have the impact generally for women if the agency were, and were seen to be independent and totally able to take on their own dynamic. Here one has to talk about the position of who is going to be the chair person, the crucial official. Speaking as a woman and a person who has been involved for a long time in the women's movement here and in the women's organisation, that is a crucial appointment and one which must be carefully considered by whichever Government will be making the appointment.

One welcome aspect of the proposals on the agency is that their annual report will be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas. All public representatives should welcome the opportunity that either House of the Oireachtas will have the opportunity to debate what is in the report because this gives us also a monitoring effect in that we will be able to see from their report what the agency are doing, the type of cases they are investigating and the type of practice they will investigate. I do not think they will investigate individual cases as such. They are covered in different ways in the Bill. The important thing is that the agency will get to grips with the practice of discrimination and that they, under the procedures in the Bill. will lead to investigations, conciliation, reports and so on and do something about that. That is in the long term and is the only way we are going to get to grips with the real problem.

Finally, the passing of this Bill will start a new era not just for women in Ireland but for society. We have recognised in Parliament that there is discrimination and we are recognising that something needs to be done about it in a legal way. From here on it is a matter for the agency, the Government, the women's organisations as to the speed at which it will be implemented. Women and men, employers and employees must be aware of what is in this Bill. If that is effectively done, I reckon that within five years we might see a transformation of the position of women in society in Ireland. I believe very firmly that in eliminating discrimination against women we will have a much more equal and much better society. I also believe that in liberating women we are liberating men.

Mr. McGowan

Normally I would welcome any new measure that would help to remove discrimination against women in every walk of life but, unfortunately, it is far too simple to rush through legislation which goes only part of the way to satisfy those who are campaigning for a better deal for women. Perhaps this legislation will keep women happy, but I do not think it will because, in my view, women who have been campaigning for a long time see this legislation as a futile exercise. It does not bring forward the day when discrimination will be ended. There is no point in passing legislation if the will to implement it is not present.

We must criticise the Government on what we see to be a complete failure to implement something for which there is now an outcry all over the world. It is widely accepted that there should be equalisation in employment and no discrimination against women. "Discrimination" is a very wide term. How serious are the Government in putting forward this legislation? Do they intend to follow it up? I made representations some time ago on behalf of young girls applying for trainee positions in a nursing training centre in Sligo. I learned that approximately 2,000 applied for about a dozen jobs. After voting for this measure, what contribution have we made towards those 2,000 girls who applied for jobs? They did not realise that they had as much chance as a snowball in Hell.

If the Government are seriously concerned about the unemployment position they have an obligation to be crystal clear about their objectives and to be more aggressive in providing jobs in every field. The present trend of unemployment tends to militate more against women than men. We can partly solve the unemployment situation with men by admitting them to the Army. We cannot take women into the Army. We can admit more men into the Garda Síochána but we cannot admit large numbers of women into the Ban Garda.

Regardless of what legislation is introduced, I can see no progress being made in the women's fight for equal rights. I can see a complete absence of real determination on the Government's part to do something practical about it. There are many young girls in County Donegal at the moment who after completing their secondary education have to work in shirt factories in Derry, if they can get a work permit. I cannot see any measure that has contributed anything that will be in keeping with the intentions of this Bill—to remove discrimination against women. Men have a footing in jobs. At present finding a job is fighting for survival. Women do not have the same stamina to survive in a difficult situation. The Government will have to go further than this legislation, which is nothing more than a performance that will satisfy nobody. I cannot see any action being taken to follow up this legislation.

Senator Owens said she was happy that reports would be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas. We have too many reports coming before committees and boards. We have to come to grips with this problem. We have to be seen to be serious about it. We have serious discrimination against married women getting unemployment benefit. I know of hundreds of cases of appeals to the Department and they all received the same stock answer. There is no active real intention by the Government to do something practical. I would be one of the first to welcome this anti-discrimination measure against women, but it is a charade that satisfies nobody. I would like to see it matched with some practical measure. I hope the Fianna Fáil Government will have an opportunity to be more practical than introducing this——

Mr. Lyons

Twenty years hence.

Mr. McGowan

——narrow-minded legislation. The Fianna Fáil Party totally agree with the European concept. We are not looking over our shoulder to see how it suits any industry. We recognise it is a big problem and one that has been neglected for years. I hope we will get an opportunity to be more practical than introducing legislation like this which can only be regarded as lip service.

Mr. Harte

In other Bills we had a discourse which would be relevant also to this Bill, so I will be brief. In welcoming the Bill it is only fair to say that, while criticism may be levelled at the delay in introducing it, it is equally valid to say that the amount of protective legislation that has been introduced by the present Minister far exceeds that of any of his predecessors. Not only the trade union movement but the working classes generally —I am not talking about the muffler and scarf workers but about those who earn their living either by hand or by brain—have a lot to be thankful for in regard to the legislation that has been introduced by this Minister.

What Senator Owens had to say was very convincing. It is generally recognised that the argument that women were physically weaker and more passive than men is meeting a lot of opposition. In many cases it has been proved that that assumption is not true. There is the other argument that men are more logical and have greater mental ability than women. That argument has been disproved on many occasions, particularly during some debates in this House. It could be argued that men are better at boxing, rugby and strenuous sports. There is evidence that women have a greater resistance to disease. Without being facetious, they put many men under the clay quicker than the men put them under the clay.

With regard to the question of passiveness, the war years in England gave the lie to that. Many women who took on very difficult physical jobs during the war continued to do them after the war. This has generated the feeling that women as the weaker sex is a bit of a joke.

Our educational system has not provided the kind of leadership course that would present opportunities to women. AnCO are doing a great job and have encouraged females to enter the maintenance trade and so on. To satisfy the situation to a greater extent, it will be necessary to develop leadership courses to present women with opportunities to take their rightful place in a managerial capacity in the various aspects of the services and in industry.

The agency, with their power to investigate and do research, are a very good idea. The fact that they will be an overseer and able to identify areas where discrimination is being practised and have an enforcement function is also very good. It should hearten many women who have been looking forward to this type of legislation. The equality of officers for the Labour Court is also a great step forward. The agency can issue non-discriminatory notices and go as far as the High Court for an injunction if the people practising it do not desist.

I had experience where people lost redundancy money because they had to go before a tribunal and were not equipped to present their own case; some of them were not organised into trade unions. This agency will help these people to present their cases. Overall, apart from being an overseer, investigator and an ombudsman-type of body, it will act as an educational agency.

I want to put on record that in the whole process of the national wage agreement, great efforts have been made by various people to bridge the gap between people in the general wage area and the basic wage rates. Wage agreements, as they are written, merely state the general facts, they do not advance the idea of job evaluation systems—whether they are points rating systems, comparison classification or whatever. When dealing with the question of discrimination, particularly in the case of equal pay for work of equal value, it is necessary to think seriously about putting emphasis on job evaluation rather than on the evaluation of the person. This seems to exist in most industries to ensure that when making selections a man is selected. An advertisement can say the job is open to everybody but if there is a competition for the job, the advertising agency should not be able to discriminate, although they may have some kind of merit rating system. They can say to an individual: "You were very good but the other person was exemplary". That is one way to criminate—by telling the woman she was very good and that the man was exemplary. This is something the agency will have to keep their eye on. If there are arguments over rates of pay for a job, it does not matter whether it is a man or woman who is doing it. The job should be assessed rather than the person. I would urge the Minister to keep his eye on that.

It was mentioned that nothing was done about the recommendations of the Commission on the Status of Women. In the Social Welfare Bill alone over 12 of those recommendations have been implemented. This is wonderful, protective legislation. It is the beginning of something, not the end. Much work will have to be done. Various representative bodies, women's organisations, trade unions and so on, will have to keep their eyes on the ball to ensure that the word of the Bill becomes the deed. I welcome this legislation.

Mr. Lyons

The objective of this Bill is to provide for equal opportunities in employment. Taking that as a bald statement, there is nothing against it. There is a great deal of ground to be travelled before that can be accepted by our society as a whole, by our employers and even by our women. It creates a massive diversion from what we had heretofore. Many other problems will arise when, as has been mentioned earlier, the market for employment is curtailed because so many married women will be holding down jobs and opportunities for the unmarried people are not there. Whether we like it or not, this is a fact of life and something we will all have to face. It is something that will cause massive problems in the future.

I am not speaking from a religious point of view, but being a Catholic, this impinges on what our Church teaches with regard to women, not alone in relation to the status of clergy or accepting women in the church but the fact that the woman's place is in the home and that her first duty is to the family. We are not supposed to accept anything that takes away from that duty. I am only stating the realities of the situation. Let us face it. The question of equal opportunity in the home would be decried by every male I know, because no male would accept the duties of a woman in the home for 24 hours a day and seven days a week. A woman has to rear her family and, at the same time, probably has to endure the problems associated with husbands, problems which are not negligible.

This question is far bigger than just saying that a woman is accepted at the same level in an industrial area. In a social area she may be sometimes accepted more than the male, but in the industrial area she has not heretofore been accepted. She has not been accepted in the civil service or in the local authorities at the same level as the male. Whether in the long run it is going to be better for women to be accepted at these levels is something women are more easily able to estimate than I am.

The Bill has been decried by some members of the Opposition. They said it meant nothing, that it is only something on paper. Fianna Fáil were a long time in office and they did not even put it on paper or anywhere else. To say that it means nothing is not true, because it does. It sets the guideline for future legislation. The problems that arise will have to be tackled. The first thing is: will society accept this? Society has never been defined, but it is comprised of all the people of the land and of all their institutions. If society is prepared to accept what is set out in this Bill, this will be a major breakthrough and will take some time. Even if it is accepted in the long run, there will have to be some major changes in the social, industrial and work situations.

In the next few weeks great play will be made about the number of young people who are being suddenly thrown on the market, but nobody will say that working married women have any bearing on the situation. I do not want to refer to the political truth of the matter but in the past it never mattered how many young people came on the unemployment market because they took the boat from Dún Laoghaire to Holyhead and to other countries and there were no repercussions. In future a policy will have to be produced. I am hoping every day to hear of such a policy. One party have said they will solve this problem in the not too distant future, but I believe it will be the far distant future. I will be glad if they do solve it when they come back to power.

If it is accepted at industrial, governmental and all other levels that the opportunities for women will be equal to those for men, there will have to be a change in outlook, the provision of facilities for married women who are leaving their children at home, a change in the educational situation to deal with the children who will have to be left at home and other changes in relation to the husbands who will have to take over work they were probably never used to.

How this Bill is to be brought into operation and how the women will be assured that there are no problems along the way is a matter for the people at administrative level. There will have to be a massive movement by women in the projection of the facts contained in the explanatory memorandum. By women I mean representatives of all the women of this nation, particularly the married women and the young girls who are looking for jobs.

Most of the people who are very vocal about the liberation of women have never been married, most of them have never had a child but they designate what the rights of women are and what they might be. I want to see women becoming very vocal. During the election campaign I want to hear the married women and the young girls leaving schools say what they think about this Bill.

I do not want to bore the House with more facts about the situation. I accept the Bill. It will lay the groundwork for many more Bills of this kind in the future. They will be the breakthrough to get society to accept what the Minister has accepted in this memorandum.

Mr. Yeats

Whatever reservations one may have as to the effectiveness of this Bill there need be no doubt that we can welcome it as a step which needed to be taken. The Leader of the House will not be surprised to hear me yet again complaining about the circumstances in which we are discussing this Bill.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I would be surprised if I did not.

Mr. Yeats

In view of the way in which business is ordered it is inevitable. Although this is a highly amendable Bill I think I am correct in saying that the legal position is such that even the smallest amendment to this Bill under the circumstances where the other House is apparently going to be dissolved would mean that the Bill would die. None of us would like to see that happen. We are, therefore, in the position yet again of discussing a Bill that we simply cannot amend. I am not talking about the practical possibilities of amending it against an entrenched majority on the other side. The point is that this is a parliamentary assembly which is discussing an essentially Committee Stage Bill in circumstances in which it is impossible for us to amend it without killing the Bill. This seems highly unnecessary and highly unsatisfactory.

As Senator Evelyn Owens has pointed out, this Bill first originated around 1975. Even allowing for the necessary consultations in which the Minister was engaged, it seems after all this time that it could have been brought forward at a time and in circumstances in which it would have been possible for us to debate it. However, the fact that an election is on the way presumably had something to do with the Minister suddenly rushing into the Houses of the Oireachtas with this Bill which had languished for the previous couple of years.

The Minister is perfectly right in saying that the type of discrimination which this Bill seeks to outlaw is a type of discrimination which one must attempt to tackle. The Minister and Senator Owens rightly pointed out that equal pay in itself is not sufficient. It is quite clear that in countries, unlike here, where equal pay has been fully introduced the average earnings of women are still very much lower than the average earnings of men because, although equal pay may exist for equal work the opportunities open to women are nothing like as wide as those open to men. The fact that this situation exists in this and in other countries is a reflection on us all. It is not just employers, it is public opinion. A couple of years ago a man of my acquaintance was on an interview board of three filling an important position. He told me that on this board they found that of the various candidates Miss So-and-So was far the best qualified, but they could not appoint her and had to appoint a man who was not as good. It was a matter of course that because the actual winner was a woman she was not suitable to be appointed. Too many of us have this type of attitude.

We had the remarkable situation that until a comparatively short time ago there were no women cashiers in Irish banks. One understood over the years that the explanation given by the governors was that it was essential that the banking system should be accepted by the depositors as sound, that people would not put their money in a bank which was run in an unsound and unbusinesslike way, and that if women were employed as cashiers in banks the public would not lodge their money because it would no longer be safe. This was solemnly put to the Irish public by these gentlemen who run our banks. I am not quite clear how it happened but by some means women were able to worm their way into jobs as cashiers in banks. Surprisingly, the banks are still apparently solvent and people continue to lodge their money in them with women cashiers. It is not so long ago that that position was remedied.

It is not just employers. There is no doubt that discrimination has been observed by trade unions over the years. In the 1890s it is a historical fact that when William Morris, founded the famous Kelmscott Press in London he attempted to employ a woman to work in the press. To do this she had to join the trade union. The trade union refused to accept her and he took a famous action which he won in the High Court in London, and was able to employ the woman. It shows the rapidity with which these things operate that even after this celebrated legal victory in the 1890s we still have the position that the printing unions exclude women from their membership. Nor will one see women serving in publichouses, because trade unions will not let them in.

The Bill should be able to deal with these type of situations fairly easily. When the mere fact that particular jobs such as printing cannot be in future restricted to one sex is laid down in law it ought to be relatively easy to carry out. What will be much more difficult will be persuading people that they ought not to discriminate against women. An employer can be told that he must in future employ not just men but that he must advertise for either men or women but he cannot be made to hire women when it comes to the pinch. Who is to say, when candidates are being interviewed, that the reason why somebody was selected was because he was a man rather than a woman or vice versa? To have complete equality in employment a great change in public attitudes will have to come about.

Undoubtedly a Bill such as this can help. One must hope that it will be applied with a great deal more force, earnestness, and seriousness than the complementary question of equal pay has been dealt with. The Minister said that the Employment Equality Agency will also monitor progress towards the elimination of discrimination in employment under the Equal Pay Act. This is an extraordniary pronouncement. An equal pay directive from the EEC came into force on 10th February, 1976. As from then every woman in Ireland was entitled to equal pay for equal work. We all know that that has not happened. They are entitled to equal pay retrospectively to 10th February, 1976. Under our Equal Pay Act they are entitled to equal pay retrospectively to 1st January before this. Under EEC law equal pay now exists in this country. The Minister and the Government are under an obligation, because of our membership of the EEC, to see that this directive is observed. It has not been and is not being observed.

Senator Owens spoke about the number of people who got equal pay. I wish she had given some information. It is information that I have not been able to get. I tried in trade union circles to find out how many people have been getting equal pay. There do not appear to be any statistics available. Even those actively involved in trade union circles like Senator Owens, in trying to foster the growth of equal pay do not know what the situation is. As far as I have been able to find out, neither the Department, the trade unions nor the Commission in Brussels, know to what extent equal pay has been carried out under the provisions of our own legislation and the EEC directive. The only thing anyone knows is that the vast majority of women who would qualify for equal pay for equal work have not got it. The Government, of which the Minister is a member, quite deliberately brought in a provision covering the entire public service where there is not equal pay in accordance with the provisions of the directive. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions had to deliver a formal protest to the Commission in Brussels because of this deliberate action on the part of the Irish Government.

Under the Bill we have the Employment Equality Agency which is to monitor progress and make recommendations to the Minister. Yet another body has been set up to suggest to the Minister what he might do to bring in equal pay. It is the Minister's responsibility. He should not need to set up an agency to monitor progress. He should know what is going on and if he does not know he ought to know. Equal pay is not being brought in. After years when women were being paid wages far below what men were getting for equivalent work, we now at last have the position where, largely because of our membership of the EEC, equal pay came into force under EEC law on 10th February, 1976. Yet, towards the end of May, 1977, we simply have not got it. Figures are not available yet to show who is getting it, who has not got it and how many more should get it. The Government have been discriminating against women in the public service.

If we look at the latest national wage agreement between the Government, the employers and the trade unions we find that article 16 contains a provision whereby the contracting parties agree that the matter of equal pay will not be pressed by means of industrial action. During the recent telephonists' strike for equal pay the Government said that they had no business going on strike, because they had promised under this national wage agreement not to use industrial action to press for equal pay. This is the way in which the equal pay legislation has been administered by the Government and the Minister.

This is a much easier problem than the problem of discrimination against women in employment. At the time the Equal Pay Bill was going through we all accepted that while there were considerable technical difficulties in bringing in equal pay it was a relatively easy problem compared with the much more difficult task of ensuring that discrimination in the giving of jobs would be ended. If the relatively simple task of bringing in equal pay has been dealt with in this haphazard, unenthusiastic way, what can we expect from this Bill? Certainly one must welcome the Bill, but in the light of the lack of progress on the equal pay front one can only look with some misgivings at the progress which may be made under this legislation. However, so far as it goes, I welcome it and I hope that the Minister who, in some four weeks' time will start administering it, will do so with greater enthusiasm than has been shown in the past.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I hope to acknowledge the Minister's return after the election.

Ruairí Quinn

I congratulate the Minister on bringing forward this legislation and all the other reforming legislation which his Department has brought forward in the past four years. Without any sense of flattery for a member of my own party, it is true that the legislative record of the Department of Labour over the past four years will show that the present Minister has been, from the point of view of the Irish worker, the most progressive, reforming and indeed the best Minister for Labour we have had. That is not a personal opinion but what the historians will deduct from the facts as laid out in the records of this and the other House with regard to the legislation which has gone through.

Earlier we heard from the now vacant benches on the far side of the House about this Bill and I was pleased to hear the mainly balanced comments of Senator Yeats in his last contribution. It was in marked contrast to the kind of nonsense which Senator McGowan put forward when the Minister was in the other House. Senator McGowan attempted to deny that throughout many years the previous Government had ignored this aspect of our lives, and to revert back to the old solution to our problems— the great Lemass words "Never mind about the details, never mind about the working conditions, never mind about the qualifications, just get the show on the road again, get the jobs and get the money pouring in. Let it all happen". Lemass's famous words were "The rising tide lifts all boats and let us not worry about the safety of the crew or the quality of the ship". We know that that tide may have lifted a number of boats but it turned a lot of rowing boats into big yachts in the real sense. The actual wealth which was created in the sixties with unprecedented rates of economic growth compared with previous years was not properly distributed or properly reinvested. Response to any attempt to reform legislation, to improve the quality of life in any area such as the work place in this context, is brushed aside by people who failed or refused to recognise the need for it in the past and have simply come back to the old saying "Look, if you had plenty of jobs for everybody there would be no problem".

The other House has had a great deal of discussion on this Bill, so hopefully it will go through without too much discussion. I will reiterate the views expressed by my colleague, Senator Dalgan Lyons. A problem exists with regard to specific advertisement of employment and to that extent the Minister is correct in bringing in this legislation and I welcome it. In my area the word "draftsman" is constantly used as a description for employment, for which there should be no sex qualification. It is an indication of the kind of prejudice which exists. I welcome the day when that term will disappear and when the implied prejudice and preference will go. When we make it an offence to think in those terms employers will be forced in a formal sense to re-examine their attitudes with regard to the roles of both sexes in our society.

Section 33, paragraph (b) says

to promote equality of opportunity between men and women in relation to employment.

I hope that the terms of reference of that paragraph will be suitably enlarged to enable that agency to make comments on the kind of sex role formations that exists in many of our educational institutions. It would be appropriate because it determines equal opportunity in the early stages of a person's development if the role of a child is defined in a school reading book. At one of the teaching conferences over the Easter weekend I was glad to see a teaching nun refer to this. Frankly, it has appalled me now that my children are getting to the stage of learning actually to read the kind of rubbish, where girls always played with dolls and boys always climbed trees and kicked balls around. If that is the case, I have very abnormal children because they frequently fight about who is going to climb the tree or who is going to play with the dolls. That kind of attitude permeates our educational system and until that can be changed we will not get the necessary change in attitude which will make this kind of legislation more or less redundant. It would be the aim of everybody in this House to see the day come when the dissolution of such an agency would be possible, when we would not need an equal employment agency.

We do not need this type of legislation, fortunately, in this part of our island with regard to religion. There is no discrimination in regard to religion. There may have been in the past in some of the traditional industries in Dublin but there is certainly not now and, therefore, there is no need for legislation. There is definitely a need for this kind of agency here but we should be working towards its eventual dissolution. I encourage the Minister within the terms of the Act to take an open-ended definition of the words "equal opportunity" with regard to employment and to allow that agency to be able to comment on the sexist nature, role, definition or construction of many of our educational establishments. A lot of work has been done in this area within the teaching profession. My colleague, Senator John Horgan, will be able to comment in more detail. There has been, more importantly, recognition of this by the women's organisations generally and specifically by some of the women's organisations who are involved in teaching.

I again compliment the Minister who has done an excellent job in his four years as Minister for Labour.

Mr. Horgan

Like Senator Quinn, I compliment the Minister on the final Act in a series of Acts relating to conditions of employment and recruitment which he has had passed by the Oireachtas during his tenure of office. Not the least important aspect of this or, indeed, of most of the legislation in this area that we have been dealing with in this House over the past few years is that it shows that there are things that governments can do even in and, perhaps, especially times of recession. In times of recession there is rarely enough money to go around. Tax revenue is not buoyant. We have to fight sometimes with our backs to the wall to maintain the value of social welfare payments and the support services for the weakest members of our society. On the other hand, because there is difficulty in the financial and resources area the spotlight is turned on to the social area, and on the area of legislation which can be brought in which at no cost to the State and to the taxpayer will objectively improve conditions for large numbers of our people. People who work in our society or who want to work in our society constitute one of the most critical groups in our society. We should do everything we can to make their working conditions better and make it possible for them to have access to work. This is the final Act in a programme of social legislation which has emerged from this Department over the last few years for which workers of all grades and classes will be grateful in the years to come.

It is also appropriate at this time to pay tribute not only to the expertise of the draftsman's office but to that of the Minister's Department. It is no coincidence to see not only the expertise but the sex of the advisers the Minister has ranged behind him here this afternoon.

I take issue with people who believe that the answer to our employment problems of the moment, particularly to the employment problems of young school leavers, is to prevent or to make it harder for married women either to return to work or to continue in employment. We do not solve the unemployment problems of one group of society by turfing another group out of jobs. That is simply transferring the problem from one area to another. We must make the option between home and office or factory a real one for women, perhaps in time for men as well. At the moment it may not be a genuine option for many women, either women who work at home or who work outside the home. To create this genuine option we need not only social and labour legislation of the type we are discussing here but we need two distinct types of investment. We need massive investment causing job creation and much more than has been hitherto invested by the State. We also need massive investment in what I would call domestic capital in the quality of home life that women and men can expect to have if they want to make the choice to work in the home rather than outside it. This is why expenditure in a whole range of other areas, housing amenities, development and so on can be just as important for equality of opportunity in employment as investment in actually creating jobs. True equality and access to employment will not really exist until the choice by women especially is an open and free one between two genuine alternatives.

The Minister said a couple of things which need underlining, particularly when he spoke about the explanations which are usually advanced for the absence of women from managerial positions. The Minister said that there is just plain prejudice, meaning mainly male prejudice, then that there is the narrow concept of women's roles, the effects of single sex schooling and the range of studies which girls traditionally study at school. The Minister suggested that the remedy for this sad situation lies in the improvement of the educational training which is provided for women before they enter employment. The absence of any serious provision for co-education in the Irish education system is not only lamentable in itself but a major contributory factor to the disease which this Bill is trying to eradicate. I know that there are problems. It is traditionally said of the Irish parent that he would be delighted to have co-educational schools for his sons and convent schools for his daughters. There are deeply ingrained social attitudes which will take a long time to change.

I am often struck today by the extraordinary contrast between the educational system as it exists and the educational system as I imagine many parents would like it to be. The facts are absolutely startling. Take Dublin, for example. There are approximately 130 secondary schools in the city and county of Dublin. The vast majority of these, of course, are Catholic secondary schools owned and managed by Catholic religious orders. I counted them a couple of weeks ago and there are no more than four or five Catholic secondary schools in Dublin which could, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as co-educational. Not only that, but some of these four or five can be called co-educational only by the most extreme stretch of the imagination. In one of them, for example, there are 500 boys and four girls. I am, perhaps, paying that school a compliment in describing it as co-educational. It is co-educational in theory rather than in fact.

In Cork there are some 22 or 23 Catholic secondary schools. Again a tiny handful, three or four, can be described as co-educational. In Limerick there are 11 Catholic secondary schools. Not one of them is co-educational. The situation is exactly the same at primary level. We should be asking ourselves: does this distribution of schools as between single sex schools and co-educational schools really reflect the wishes of a substantial majority of Irish parents? I am talking particularly in this case about Irish Catholic parents, because parents of other religious denominations, and none, have traditionally been rather better catered for, partly for economic reasons, in their choice of single sex or co-educational schools.

The facts are quite startling. I believe that far more parents would opt for co-educational education for their children were co-educational schools actually available for them. It is a major weakness in the system that that choice is not available. We are often supposed to have a choice in education. Our own education system is often praised for the degree of choice it provides. Here is one very important area of choice which does not exist for parents even in the cities, the areas in which choice can be most easily and cheaply provided. I accept that there are major problems in extending co-educational education. There are structural problems, for example. There is one particular religious order I am thinking of whose own statutes prevent them from educating children of a certain sex.

Again there are psychological problems. There are social problems and perhaps even political and, to some extent, financial problems. When you have waded through all the tomes about co-education, the pros and the cons, you will come finally to one conclusion which is almost irrefutable, that is, that the main opposition to co-education comes from people who have not experienced it. The main support for it comes from people who have and, in so far as this Bill helps to reawaken the debate on this important educational area, I certainly welcome it.

I should like to make a couple of points on the Bill itself in slightly more detail because I suspect it is probably better to do this now than on Committee Stage and not delay the proceedings of the House at a later date. The first thing that occurs to me—and to some extent it is related to what I have already said—is that there might conceivably be situations in which there are conflicts between section 6 and section 12 of the Bill. Section 6 prevents discrimination in relation to vocational training. Section 12 relates to exemptions from the Bill and includes religious orders and Ministers of religion. I do not want to create difficulties where none exist, but I would be very glad to hear that educational and vocational and training institutions managed by people who are exempted under section 12 will not have this sort of problem. In other words, if there is a conflict between the two sections, which section prevails?

I had some difficulty with section 13 as well.

I can sympathise with the draftsman's difficulty, but it still raises many problems because section 13 states that nothing in this Act shall require an employer to employ in a position a person who will not undertake the duties attached to that position or who will not accept the conditions under which those duties are performed. One would like to see somewhere in that section a word like "reasonable" because it is not at all impossible for an employer to import, under the protection of section 13, provisions which would, in fact, be blatantly sexist in character in order to prevent him employing somebody, but which would be totally unreasonable in terms of any reasonable way of looking at the job in question.

I can see the difficulties putting in the word "reasonable" would create and I suspect I know the reasons why a word like that was left out. I suspect its effect may be to make that particular section rather less meaningful and rather less important than it otherwise might be.

Section 17 (2) (a) relates, it seems to me, at least partially to questions of entertainment. Most of the entertainment I got was from reading it because it reads rather extraordinarily and perhaps a simple clarification might be in order. Subsection (2) (a) reads:

For the purposes of this section, the sex of a person shall be taken to be an occupational qualification for a post in the following cases—

(a) where, on grounds of physiology (excluding physical strength or stamina) or on grounds of authenticity for the purpose of a form of entertainment, the nature of the post requires a member of a particular sex because otherwise the nature of the post would be materially different if carried out by a member of the other sex.

I imagine I am right in saying the physiology as well as the authenticity both relate to entertainment only, and a person cannot be excluded on grounds of physiology from non-entertainment forms of employment other than under the general exemptions mentioned later in the Bill.

My final comment on the Bill itself is in relation to section 28. Section 28 echoes a number of similar sections in the Bills which have come from the Department of Labour over the past few years. It is basically a section which gives people the right to information, the right to explanations. This is a new trend in our legislation and one of the most welcome I can imagine. It is one thing to have legislation which confers rights on people. It is another thing to have legislation which gives people the right to demand facts, to demand explanations, to demand reasons, because three-quarters of the wrong, three-quarters of the injustice in this world, it sometimes seems to me, happens because people who are in power are allowed to fudge the edges of their responsibilities and to get away by pleading inability or, indeed, even simple unwillingness to tell people what in any sense of justice they are entitled to know. With those final words I commend the Bill to the House.

Mr. Brosnahan

It was not my intention to make any contribution to this Bill but, since education has been mentioned, I would like to clarify the situation as far as teachers are concerned. At the outset I should like to compliment the Minister and his Department on producing this Bill. As Senator Horgan has said it is another step forward in social planning and will redound to the credit of the Minister in the years ahead.

It is most important that this step should be taken to remove discrimination in employment. In 1934, a marriage ban was introduced in national schools and married women had to leave employment as from 1st July of that year. After 24 years of pressure, the Irish National Teachers' Organisation succeeded in having the marriage bar withdrawn and all teachers can now remain in employment, even though married. Married women, particularly at family level, have a tremendous contribution to make. They understand from the experience of rearing their own children the difficulties experienced by young pupils particularly. Rule 76 of the Department also contained discrimination against women. Women could not become principals of the larger schools. Within the last couple of years, the Department have removed this discrimination and women can now become principals of even the largest primary schools.

With regard to co-education, I should like to clarify the position as far as my own organisation are concerned, the Irish National Teachers' Organisation. We have always welcomed the idea of co-education. As a matter of fact, a very large number of schools throughout the country were mixed schools, co-educational schools, and boys and girls were taught in the same classes in many areas. I have seen co-educational schools in various countries, with particular reference to Holland and Denmark, and I have asked the teachers up to leaving certificate level what was their experience of this experiment in education. The teachers were unanimous in their opinion that the girls had a tremendous influence over the boys. There was less vandalism and the children generally tended to be more mannerly than in the single sex schools.

I should like to conclude by saying that we as a teachers' organisation, because of our experience in these fields of discrimination, welcome this Bill.

Minister for Labour (Mr. M. O'Leary)

I want to thank Senators for their kind reception of this Bill and to say that I too regret the fact that we have come here so late in the life of the other House that, for all practical purposes, putting down amendments would have no effect on the legislation. Most Senators who contributed would agree it is important to get this Bill enacted as rapidly as possible, even Senators who might feel some amendments might be worth while. I believe any Bill benefits from an impartial inquiry by both Houses of the Oireachtas.

I had hoped this legislation would have been ready sooner, but that is not how it turned out. We were ready to proceed with it, with the addition of the Employment Equality Agency, since about autumn but quite a large amount of legislation dealing with workers' conditions and protections became available for the attention of the other House only by autumn. At some stage in the future we must turn our attention to the long preparation required before legislation can be brought before either House. There is an undue delay between the conception of a policy and bringing it before the Dáil or the Seanad. We must look at this in the future. Much of the legislation I first started work on about four years ago became available for Oireachtas attention only in the autumn of last year. That is no one's fault. There are certain deficiencies in the system we inherited.

I also agree legislation in this area is not the total answer. Senators and Deputies have a duty to set out in law certain standards we would like to see adopted voluntarily in people's dealings with one another and, especially, accepted voluntarily in Irish industry. I do not want to revert to the points raised on the Equal Pay Bill debate, but references were made to it. That Act had its critics at the time of its enactment in both Houses. Certain arguments were made that there were inherent weaknesses in the Bill. Most critics would now accept that that Act in operation has proved to be superior to its counterpart in Britain. Where that Act has been invoked by workers, they point especially to the inclusion in our legislation of the important reference to work of equal value, a very radical engine indeed for equalising pay conditions between men and women and one that is not in the British Act. I am not saying that was the greatest piece of legislation ever enacted, but I certainly say it can take its place in Europe as one of the better statutory instruments for equalising pay between the sexes.

Senator Yeats asked what happened on the ground, what are the practical results of the application of equal pay in industry. Senator Yeats must understand we live in a society where a good deal of power is still left in the hands of unions and employers and especially in this area. All the legislators can do is to ensure that our legislation is as good as possible. Having set what the legislative standards should be, it is over to the actual negotiators and bargainers to implement them in practice. In that matter I have no function; nor do I seek such a function.

Senator Yeats misunderstands the nature of trade unionism if he thinks the Minister for Labour can order them to do this and do that in the wage bargaining area. Some Ministers for Labour might wish to have such authority. I have no such desire at all after four-and-a-half years in the job. Nor have I ever had such an ambition, understanding full well the objectives unions set themselves in the wage bargaining area and the desire they have to retain their own authority in that area.

There is very little we can do by way of making amendments to this legislation this afternoon. The other House is coming to an end apparently and the Seanad may continue for some further period. These are more or less the closing stages of what comes to us from the other House. I said in the Dáil recently that, if the Whips could agree to giving us a later summer recess, we might get the Second Stages of the Safety, Health and Welfare of Workers Bill into the Dáil and Seanad, but it does not look as if that opportunity will arise. I say this by way of explaining why this Bill comes so late in the day to this House. There was a good deal of discussion with both employers and unions before it could be processed in the Dáil and then there was further delay on agreement on the exact functions of the agency referred to so often by Senators here today. Senator Horgan and Senator Quinn suggested that the powers of that agency should be wider, that it should have wider reference. I might agree with that view but, taking the purview of the Bill and my area of responsibility, it was not open to me to extend it in that fashion.

The Equality Employment Agency will be a significant force in bringing about equality between the sexes in Ireland over the next decade. We have set the criteria and laid the foundation on which it will work, and it will be for all of us to add to the functions of that agency. It is an independent agency with its own governing body and it will have representatives of both empolyers' and unions' organisations on it. I believe it will ensure that, whatever Government are in power, whatever Minister is in the Ministry of Labour, the cause of equality between men and women will be pursued in a methodical and just fashion in our society. Other matters which were raised by Senators are more appropriate to Committee Stage.

Question put and agreed to.

Agreed to take remaining Stages today.

Bill put through Committee, reported without amendment, received for final consideration and passed.

Seanad Éireann díospóireacht - Wednesday, 25 May 1977

Employment Equality Bill, 1975: Second and Subsequent Stages.

Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 25 May 1977