The first International Women's Day was observed in 1911 following calls for women's rights, including the right to vote and to hold public office. It was officially adopted by the United Nations in 1975. The day focuses on celebrating progress while urging pay equality, educational opportunities and increased representation and leadership. This year I was invited to a few events, and I was asked to make a few videos. I did not go to any events, and I did not make a video because my heart was not in it. I could not muster the enthusiasm to celebrate women in power, women in business and women in leadership. Why? It is because every single day and in every single email, phone call or appointment in my clinics I meet women who have not seen the benefits of equality, equity and empowerment. Since I was elected I have met women in the worst possible situations and who have been abused, threatened, raped, controlled, dominated and demeaned, women who are shadows of themselves and who are silenced and scared. Early in my working life I worked in a domestic violence refuge for women in London. I was angered then about the way women were treated, and 28 years later I am still horrified by the way women are still being treated. They are still in the same situations and the law has barely moved on to fully protect them. Women are not being protected from their abusers and society is still not calling them out. There are people still having a pint in the pub with the perpetrator and they are still not calling that behaviour out in the workplace or many other places and there is still silence. We saw a parade for St. Patrick's Day in Ballinrobe, County Mayo, yesterday that had a float simulating rape. Why was a float dedicated to the Epstein files allowed, and why, when children were present at a parade was any such depiction of rape allowed? It is absolutely horrific and joking about rape is part of the problem we have in this society. Outside Leinster House today we will see a protest against proposed development of the mother and baby home site in Bessborough. There are no burial records for 859 children. There are records for their baptism but not for their burial. These mothers and their babies were treated horrifically, and their horror continues today. There is an interconnectivity of abuse of mothers and their babies that continued into the abuses in industrial and reformatory schools and other institutions of abuse. I notice outside Leinster House that the Countess Markiewicz statue has been moved to make way for the Daniel O'Connell statue. It seems like a small thing, I admit, but for centuries women have been erased and moved out of the way and this is continuing today. Girls and young women in this world are still not able to access education. There are 122 million girls remaining out of school globally. Adolescent girls aged between 15 and 19 in south Asia are three times more likely than boys to not be in education, training or employment. There are almost 50 million girls and young women who are not able to read or write a single sentence. I will truly celebrate International Women's Day when half of the seats in this Chamber are women, when the people who are in here represent the people outside here and when every girl gets the same opportunity as her boy counterpart.

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