Kathleen Funchion on Childcare Costs and Gender-Based Violence
Kathleen Funchion spoke on International Women's Day, focusing on the early years childcare sector and gender-based violence. She argued that high childcare costs lock women out of work and education, and called for a properly resourced gender-based violence strategy and better supports for the early-years workforce.
Committee work and historical context
She said she had stepped briefly out of the Children's Committee which was considering amendments to the Adoption and Tracing Bill, noting the Bill arose from the mother and baby institutions and speaks to a negative part of how women and children were treated.
Childcare sector scale and barriers
She highlighted that approximately 27,000 people work in the early-years sector and estimated that well over 90% are women. Citing government research, she said childcare costs are in the region of 1,350 per month per child and recalled a 2020 My Child Care Story initiative in which 90% of respondents said costs were a barrier to returning to work and 73% reported serious difficulty accessing a place.
Impact on women's careers and pensions
She argued that childcare access and affordability block women from returning to education or progressing from part-time to full-time work, and that taking parental leave affects career progression and later pension outcomes. She said these long-term impacts must be taken seriously in discussions about advancing women.
Conditions and pay for early-years workers
She called for early-years staff to receive proper terms and conditions and proper wages so they do not have to sign on to social welfare over the summer. She framed workforce respect and pay as central to any solution for childcare affordability.
Gender-based violence strategy and refuge provision
She urged publication and adequate resourcing of the gender-based violence strategy, welcomed the proposal for it to sit under one department, and warned that there are not enough refuge beds, including one full county in her area with no refuge for women fleeing domestic violence.
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Thank you very much, I'm Karen Cora, I'm delighted to be able to speak today on statements in relation to International Women's Day, and ironically I've just stepped out temporarily from the Children's Committee where we're discussing a large number of amendments in relation to the Adoption and Tracing Bill, which as we know came out as a result of the mother and baby institutions, so obviously that is one of the very negative parts of our history and how we actually treated women and children. I also want to primarily focus my remarks on the early years in childcare sector today, mainly because we know through study after study, through survey after survey, that is one of the key reasons that women are locked out of the workforce and locked out of returning to education, that is trying to access childcare and also trying to afford it, and it is a predominantly female sector. Of the approximately 27,000 people that work in the sector, I would say easily over 90% are women, and it's not the only, I suppose, workforce where you're going to see women being in low-paid employment. I would say if you were to look through all the amount of low-paid work that's out there, women unfortunately top that list time and time again, but the reason I want to specifically look at the area of the early years in childcare is because for all of the very excellent speeches that we get, and I have to say I feel very honoured to have the opportunity to be in this chamber, but you know, we do talk a lot about various things that we'd like to see happen, and for women, if we're talking about the progression of women, whether that's going returning to education, or getting back into work, or maybe going from part-time to full-time, we know many women that end up, they're trying to take some parental leave along with their job, and this obviously affects their career progression, people say it doesn't, but we all know that it does, and it also has an impact on women's pensions when they come to that age. Many of us don't think about that until later in life, but still it's a really important part, and if we really are serious about the progression of women, then we have to be serious about tackling the issue of the cost of the early years, and also for those who work in the sector, they need to be respected with the proper terms and conditions, proper wages, they shouldn't have to be signing on to social welfare over the summer, and parents shouldn't be paying, and this is actually from the government's own research in the region of 1,350 per month per child for childcare. I mean, last, or actually in 2020 at this stage, we launched an initiative called My Child Care Story, and we had a number of people, you know, give us their feedback in relation to that, and 90% of people said that childcare costs were a barrier to them returning to the workforce, 90% and then 73% had serious difficulties accessing a place. So, it's just, I want to take the opportunity, when speaking about issues that particularly affect women, to look at that, there's loads of issues, and I'm always torn about exactly what I want to say when we're speaking about the various things that impact women, but that is one of the key things. I also want to touch briefly on the gender-based violence. I think it was in our first week back here, actually, after Christmas, that I would think was one of the few times I saw that the House seemed to be in agreement on an issue, which was in relation to gender-based violence and how we had to tackle that. Again, we can't just have the odd day here and there where we come in here and we all say, isn't it terrible, and we better do something about it, and then we all go away and nothing gets done about it. So, we really do need to see that strategy being published, and we need to see it properly resourced, and we need to see, I do welcome that when that strategy was talked about, it is going to be under one department, which I think is key, because you get away from that sort of pass in the book when things are under one department, but it really is important that it is resourced properly. We know already that we don't have enough refuge beds, and we also know, particularly from my own constituency, we have one full county that doesn't have any refuge for women fleeing domestic violence. I think they were really the main key issues, and I know my colleagues want to speak as well, so I want to give them the opportunity. So, thanks very much, Giancola. Thank you, Deputy Vice President.
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