Call for public childcare and leadership quotas to improve gender equality

Orla O’Connor, director, National Women’s Council: 'We’re still waiting to see more women in decision-making positions. The pace of change is a huge issue around women’s equality.'

Urgent actions to tackle gender inequality must be taken now by Government before the delayed National Strategy for Women and Girls is published, the National Women’s Council has said.

Solid recommendations on how to improve gender equality, such as introducing public childcare and leadership quotas, were made recently by the Citizens' Assembly and these should be acted on immediately, Orla O’Connor, director of the National Women’s Council (NWC), said.

Covid complications have meant the National Strategy for Women and Girls, the Government’s roadmap for redressing persistent gender inequalities in Ireland, was delayed by one year. It was supposed to culminate at the end of 2020 but it is expected instead to finish later this year.

But the pandemic has both entrenched and highlighted the inequalities women and girls face in Ireland and urgent action is needed now, Ms O’Connor said.

What women clearly want is action. They want to see things delivered. Women have been saying what they want – like public childcare – and we’re still waiting for that to be delivered.

“We’re still waiting to see more women in decision-making positions. The pace of change is a huge issue around women’s equality."

Citizens' Assembly report

Ms O'Connor said the recent Citizens' Assembly report into gender equality is “much stronger” than the Government’s progressing Strategy for Women and Girls.

“The Citizens' Assembly really put forward a good roadmap for where the Government needs to go in terms of equality. The current strategy is quite weak on specific outcomes," she said.

“The Citizens' Assembly made a very clear recommendation on quotas for leadership, whereas the strategy is not as clear on that.

“It also made a very clear case for public childcare, whereas that is not in the current strategy.

“These recommendations are not coming out of the blue. They’re things that have been recommended by women in lots of different places and lots of different consultation processes that the government has had. It’s just that they’ve been left sitting there.” 

The last women’s strategy, published in 2007, was followed by a recession which limited investment in the strategy. Possible post-Covid austerity is now raising concerns that history may repeat itself.

Women, particularly lone parents, bore the brunt of that recession and they have also suffered disproportionately during the pandemic.

Little urgency to tackle inequality

Yet, there is little urgency to tackle these persistent inequalities, Ms O'Connor said.

Women want the pace of change to really increase and they’re absolutely tired of waiting for equality," she said.

Our concern is that there just is not the urgency around a change for women."

A spokesperson for the Department of Equality said a progress report on the strategy was published in 2019 and highlighted achievements of the strategy up to July 2018. A progress report for the period from August 2018 to the end of 2020 is in preparation, they said.

“In response to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the implementation of the actions under the strategy, a decision was taken to extend the strategy until the end of 2021," the spokesperson said.

"An independent evaluation of the strategy will be commissioned this year and will examine the current strategy and a number of other equality strategies concluding in the same time period," they said.