International Women's Day: Statements
Dail Éireann — 2023-03-08
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Bríd Smith (PBP), Dublin South-Central

-----has campaigned for the promise of a domestic violence liaison officer. She got a motion past the city council but we still do not have a domestic violence liaison officer appointed to Dublin City Council, although we are promised funding for research into why there is such a high level of domestic violence in places like Cherry Orchard.
Honestly, we do not want any more press releases and we do not want any more promises. Women cannot wait. We need action now.
The oppression of Irish women goes back to the pervasive role of the Catholic Church in this country in collusion with the State, and the cruel enslavement of women in the mother and baby homes and the Magdalen laundries are testament to that. We still have hospitals where religion still pulls the strings, including the new national maternity hospital, and 90% of our Catholic schools still have Catholic patronage. Many of these schools do not provide the required relationships and sexual education. That is a very significant issue we have to look at.
There is the gender pay gap. We all know this system globally gets women to do the work on the cheap. That provides the next generation of workers and looks after all the care in the family home.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-03-08/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:51:40+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-03-08