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Citizens' Assembly Establishment

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 3 April 2019

Wednesday, 3 April 2019

Ceisteanna (1, 2, 3, 4)

Joan Burton

Ceist:

1. Deputy Joan Burton asked the Taoiseach if he will report on his plans for a citizens’ assembly on gender equality. [10602/19]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Brendan Howlin

Ceist:

2. Deputy Brendan Howlin asked the Taoiseach if he will report on his plans for a citizens' assembly on gender equality. [11858/19]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Mary Lou McDonald

Ceist:

3. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Taoiseach if he will report on his plans for a citizens’ assembly on gender equality. [12013/19]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Richard Boyd Barrett

Ceist:

4. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach if he will report on his plans for a citizens' assembly on gender equality. [15044/19]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Freagraí ó Béal (8 píosaí cainte)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 4, inclusive, together.

Work is under way in my Department on proposals for the establishment of a new citizens' assembly to consider gender equality. I am also proposing a citizens' assembly on a directly elected mayor for Dublin and the form that this should take.

The function of a citizens' assembly is to inform the public and increase overall awareness and comprehension of topics being examined. Consideration is being given to the parameters of these topics and how best to optimise the use of an assembly's time and the taxpayers' money. I expect these proposals to come before the Government shortly.

As with the Convention on the Constitution and the previous citizens' assembly, I expect the establishment of the assembly will be the subject of a resolution of each House of the Oireachtas and that the assembly will also report to both Houses.

We would all welcome the Taoiseach's promise in relation to a citizens' assembly on gender equality being established. While women have made great progress in this country, nonetheless there is a lot still to do. This is the centenary of Constance Markievicz becoming a Cabinet Minister, the first such woman, certainly in Britain or Ireland.

In terms of gaps, we have the gender pay gap, which in Ireland is 14%. Some 25% of Irish companies acknowledge that there is a significant gender pay gap in their business. We have a serious deficiency in the number of women involved in the governance of the universities and institutes of higher education. That needs to be specifically addressed. If women are not involved in governance, for instance, fully represented as presidents of universities and educational institutions, which they are not at all at present, it means women are absent from a very significant sphere of Irish life.

We have the issue of domestic violence. On International Women's Day, the Government signed up to the Istanbul Convention but, like the signing up by the Taoiseach's colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, nothing has been done by Government to implement the requirements of the Istanbul Convention, which would mean far more refuge spaces provided in Ireland for victims of domestic violence who are mainly and principally women and their children.

The sooner this citizens' assembly is established, the sooner it can do some serious work to improve the position of women in Ireland.

Deputy Howlin was the next to table a question.

I apologise because I nipped out to say hello to the wonderful Special Olympians for a minute and I missed the Taoiseach's response.

I raised this issue of the citizens' assembly on gender equality with the Taoiseach in October last. At that stage, the Taoiseach stated he would bring forward proposals. I presume the Taoiseach is still saying he will bring forward proposals. We need to see them.

The citizens' assembly is a good model. It worked well in the past. It is one that could be utilised effectively in the neighbouring jurisdiction as well. We need to see action on these matters now.

I want specifically to ask the Taoiseach a question on the gender pay gap. The Taoiseach will be aware that a Labour Party Bill has passed in the Seanad. Amendments could be progressed if the Government took on that Bill to deal with the egregious issue of a gender pay gap now existing in 2019.

The Government has promised its own legislation which we have not seen. If the spirit of new politics is to mean anything, if there is advanced legislation that can be amended to suit the collective will of these Houses, why would the Government not simply take the Bill that is already well advanced and deal with the issue of gender pay inequality?

I, like others, welcome the focus on gender equality. The deliberative methodology of the citizens' assembly affords an opportunity to delve into the fundamentals of gender inequality.

Some of the issues have been rehearsed, such as the gender pay gap and the absence or invisibility of women at senior levels in public institutions, and the universities have been correctly cited. It is important that we examine not only the gender pay gap but the phenomenon of women in low pay, women in insecure and precarious employment, women and poverty, women and poor housing, women and a system that not alone discriminates against them on the basis of their gender but also on the basis of their social class, and women and their health. We saw in the course of the CervicalCheck scandal the shocking finding by Dr. Scally of institutionalised misogyny within the health system. We need to look at how, even now, and let me refer to that scandal which still plays its way out, 80,000 women are affected by delays in smear tests and yet those who can pay privately can have their results in a fraction of that waiting time. If we are seriously to get under the bonnet of gender issues, we must get under the bonnet of equality issues. That has to be about class. It has to be about poverty. It has to be about the fact that women disproportionately experience poverty.

With the Leas-Cheann Comhairle's indulgence, I will mention one final issue, that of single-parent families generally, but headed up by women. In the course of the austerity that was unleashed on the population, those families more than any others took the raw end of the stick. In a way, if one were to be cynical, which I wish to assure the Leas-Cheann Comhairle I am not, one might suggest that looking at gender equality now is a bit of a political manoeuvre to take the bad look off matters.

Rhetorical or even legal commitments to gender equality are welcome, all fine and good, but to deal with many of the most serious inequalities or disadvantages that women suffer, we need tangible supports for women. I recommend that we look at two areas: domestic violence and women's refuges to support women in situations of domestic violence. We are woefully inadequate in this regard. We are operating a standard of one to 10,000 women whereas across Europe it is one to 10,000 persons. Ireland is the only country that is doing this and that means we are massively under provided for.

I was shocked to learn during the week that the first purpose-built women's refuge, built in Rathmines, has been closed for two years, ostensibly because of rewiring that was needed to be done. However, that rewiring was completed in September of last year and that refuge is still not functional. The reason, it turns out, it is not functional is because Tusla is trying to outsource it. It is the only women's refuge that Tusla runs and Tusla is trying to offload it and offload and redeploy staff who have worked there for decades. Because of Tusla's determination to outsource or the Government's obsession with outsourcing, that will remain closed, maybe until the end of the year. This is a refuge that had thousands of callers and hundreds of women and children utilising it.

The other matter I will mention briefly is the pathetic lack of childcare facilities. For example, a considerable development in my area, the Honeypark-Cualanor housing development, which was a NAMA development, included provision for a crèche. There is no crèche, despite the development being completed a while ago, because it is dependent on the private market to deliver crèche facilities. A bit like housing, it is not happening. There is a stark lack of affordable crèche and childcare facilities and the State is hoping that the private sector will deliver. It is not delivering. The Government needs to intervene directly and provide public and affordable childcare facilities.

There is a range of issues around gender equality that one could focus in on and we do not have the time in such a short space here. I say to the Taoiseach that the issue of gender equality should be a consistent integral part of daily Government policy and we should not have to await a citizens' assembly to improve and focus on services for women and policies around women.

Although people talk about the gender pay gap, the key issue, more specifically, is that many women are in low-pay occupations and very little has been done to change that story.

We can take childcare as an example. There are many strategies which note the importance of childcare, particularly between the ages from birth to three years and six years old. A child will learn more from birth to three years than he or she will for the rest of his or her life. Nevertheless, people in the childcare sector are among the lowest paid. Many people complete degrees in college in early childhood development, Montessori and a variety of areas specifically focused on professional childcare and early education. We could contrast and compare their salaries with those in primary, secondary or third level education but there is really no comparison. The bulk of people in childcare - they are not all but are mostly women - are on the minimum wage in many instances. I predict this will be a great inhibitor of the growth and expansion of childcare. We have all received representations in that regard.

We could also look at section 39 organisations, taking in nurses and allied health professionals, that are again discriminated against under Government pay policy. The pensions anomaly hit many more women than men. The decisions in that regard were taken by the Fine Gael-Labour Government. We must ask fundamental questions as to why, in many of the professions in the areas of healthcare and childcare, women are at the centre of what is essentially a low-pay regime. That needs to change and we do not need the Citizens' Assembly in order to start working on it.

Work is under way to finalise the terms of reference for the Citizens' Assembly. I hope to bring proposals to the Government on this shortly. I had hoped to have them for International Women's Day but we have not yet finalised them. There is a discussion within the Government as to whether it should examine constitutional issues that have already been examined by the Constitutional Convention. Perhaps they require re-examination and there is a question regarding the extent to which issues that have a gender aspect but are much wider than gender should be examined. For example, there is the area of caring. There are pluses and minuses in carrying out that examination.

It will require a resolution of the Houses of the Oireachtas, indicating precise terms and arrangements, to establish the assembly. Once we have a draft, we will be happy to consult with the Opposition on it. Consideration is also being given to the length of service of members and the payment of an annual stipend, transparency, research, timetable and work programmes and resourcing the establishment of the advisory group. It is expected topics will be dealt with consecutively by the assembly, with two separate cohorts of members, one chairperson and one secretariat.

What we are doing with gender equality more generally is tangible and I agree that we do not have to wait for the assembly for such action. Building on the commitments in the programme for Government, there are initiatives in line with the National Strategy for Women and Girls 2017-2020, which aims to change attitudes and practices preventing women and girls from participating fully in education, employment and public life. We recently approved the text of the gender pay gap information Bill, which will promote wage transparency by requiring companies to complete a wage survey periodically and report the results showing gender pay gaps. The Bill, which will be published shortly, will also provide a range of enforcement mechanisms. It has already been approved but there is a technical delay.

We have also reformed the working family payment to ensure working families do not face poverty. We have pursued reforms in the one-parent family payment. In the past three years, under this Fine Gael-Independent Government, we have increased the working family payment by €15 per week or approximately €850 per year. We are allowing lone parents who are working to hold on to more of the money they earn. There has also been the introduction of two years of free preschool education and a universal subsidy for childcare paid to all people availing of childcare for children between the ages of six months and three years. This autumn, the new national childcare scheme will kick in, resulting in increased subsidies for those people already receiving them. Many middle income families with incomes of up to €100,000 will receive subsidies for the first time.

A new initiative, Better Balance for Better Business, was announced last July and it is all about increasing women's representation in senior management positions in the private sector. It is led by Ms Bríd Horan and Mr. Gary Kennedy. The Government recently decided to establish a public sector network within the 30% Club to promote greater gender balance in the senior leadership of the public sector. We also committed to and subsequently held a referendum to repeal the eighth amendment. Abortion in Ireland is now legal and provided without charge. We have also introduced two weeks of paid parental leave, which will kick in later this year.

Noting that the initial sexual assault and violence in Ireland, SAVI, report was compiled a very long time ago, we have commissioned the production of a national survey on the prevalence of sexual and domestic violence, and that will be conducted by the Central Statistics Office. It is currently in the planning stage, with research stakeholder consultation and scoping to take place this year. Work is also ongoing on the implementation of a proposal to create 45 female-only senior academic roles within the higher education sector to correct the gender imbalance that exists in the area. As has been mentioned by others, on International Women's Day we had a special Cabinet meeting when we ratified the Istanbul Convention, among other actions.

We may well need more women's refuge spaces and that is currently being examined. Crucially, we have changed domestic violence law and there has been a change of approach that enables courts to ensure that the abuser leaves a home rather than the person who is subject to violence. That is the correct approach, although I realise it may not always be possible. The person perpetrating violence - the abuser - should leave the family home rather than the victim and the children. That is the approach we would certainly like to take in future and legislation is either enacted or under way to allow that happen more frequently than it does now. In the context of gender balance on State boards more broadly, we have now exceeded our 40% target for representation by women on such boards but, as mentioned on previous occasions, this is patchy across the different State boards.

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