I am glad to get the opportunity to contribute to the statements on International Women's Day. In the couple of minutes I have I want to address some of the areas where the State is failing women, particularly in sectors that are primarily made up of women. I want to turn first to the ongoing exclusion of a number of women primarily who cannot access the mother and baby institutions payment scheme. We are now a couple of years into that scheme and there are a number of women primarily who are excluded. This is wrong. I am raising this issue with the Minister. I know she keeps saying that towards the end of the scheme, towards 2029, we will probably see an uplift and that the nature of schemes like this is that more people will apply towards the end. I would pose the question of how many people, how many survivors and how many women who are excluded will have passed away between now and 2029. The special advocate has been clear. She has called for the urgent expansion of the scheme and it should be done. It should be done for the women and mothers of this State, and it should be done now. I want to also make reference to early years educators, without whom we would not have a childcare sector. They continue to be in a situation where it is up to the JLC whether they will get a few cent here or a few cent there. We usually end up in the Labour Court and we might get a euro and we will see when we will get it. That is not the way to set wages and it is not the way we should treat early years educators at a time when, on average, we are losing 20% to 25% of them across the State. They are not being retained. Foster carers should have access to a State pension but they do not. They spend a considerable amount of their lives opening up their homes, providing love and care to the most vulnerable children in the State. At the very least, they deserve a State pension at the end of their days. I also want to also refer to childminders. About 150 of them have signed up to the regulations. There are serious issues with the regulations and that is clear given the number who have signed up for the new regulations. We need to get that right because we need childminders and we need to retain them. Last, I want to speak to the point on family leave. Yes, family leave is very important, but we have an ongoing anomaly in respect of one-parent families. If a child is born into a two-parent family, each parent gets nine weeks, but if a child is born into a one-parent family, that parent gets nine weeks. That should not be the case. It should be 18 weeks. It should not be different. It is a small cohort of people. It would be a small amount of money. We should be looking at lone parents and supporting them as best we can. I know there is a calculator now in the Department of justice when it comes to child maintenance. We can have all the calculators in the world but if child maintenance is not enforced, it is not paid, which happens a lot of the time, and it is back to the lone parent every time when that should not be the case.

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