International Women's Day: Statements
Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-04
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Laura Harmon (LAB), Industrial and Commercial Panel

I am sharing time with Senator Noonan.
International Women's Day is an important time for us to reflect on how far we have come and also celebrate the women in our lives. As the eldest of five girls, I wish my sisters a happy International Women's Day.
While I was sitting here in the Chamber before speaking, I was thinking back on the strong women in my life and the women who raised me. I was born to a single mother at the time, Mary Twomey Harmon, in the late eighties. She experienced a huge amount of stigma as a single mother at the time in rural Ireland. I still feel it myself. I still think a lot about the injustice that was done to her. At the time, whether a woman decided to keep her baby, travel to England or whatever she decided to do, a woman could never make the right choice. It was not accepted by society because of the way we dealt with pregnancy and reproductive rights at the time. It saddens me to see echoes of that time this week, in particular when we see the granting of planning permission for apartments on the site of the Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork. My mother knew women who were sent to Bessborough.
A lot of people knew women who were sent to mother and baby homes at the time. It is very much part of our shameful history. It is important that we have justice for them.
I was partly raised by my grandparents. My late grandmother, Sheila Free Twomey, who passed away when I was 12, played a huge part in raising me. She would have been about my age in 1970. The world was so different for women at the time. A woman had to give up her job in the public service when she got married – this was before the marriage bar was lifted. They could not sit on juries, did not have access to contraception, would not have been able to refuse sex to their husbands, did not have proper property rights, could barely buy a pint in many pubs and, of course, pay inequality was a huge issue. How far we have come is remarkable. I played a role in the 2018 referendum on reproductive rights. It is extraordinary how much change across the three generations there has been in my lifetime.
Before I spoke, I thought about being in my grandmother's kitchen with my mother when I was about seven or eight. We were around the kitchen table and I can still remember the colour of the walls, which were green. My mother and grandmother were very excited and said they were going to play a cassette tape. My aunt got to go to the Áras and met Mary Robinson, which was a big deal. It was the start of Mary Robinson's Presidency. Of course, she opened up the Presidency to the public. As my aunt was one of the few in the family that did not emigrate, she spoke about the effects of emigration on her family. I remember we sat around and listened to the cassette tape. I remember the influence a political figure could have on a child and women in the country.
I want to thank fellow Senators and other public representatives in the Oireachtas for being trail-blazers on so many issues. I thank the man who supported me. It is often men who do not go on about it or do not have to speak too much about being feminists. They just get on with it and support you. In all of the political elections I have run for, it has primarily been men who have encouraged and stood behind me. It is important to acknowledge the role played by men.
I want to speak about women's health in particular and the need for us to do more. A lot of progress has been made but we need to put more supports in place for women across all ages. Women who experience early pregnancy loss should be entitled to proper and adequate leave. Those accessing fertility treatment should also have access to leave. We need more progress on postnatal care in this country. A motion was unanimously passed by a cross-party group two weeks ago on a year of care after birth, not just the current six-week check, which is not sufficient. Of course, workplaces need to support and recognise women during menstruation and menopause. We need to raise more awareness of menopause. It is great to see that a lot of progress has been made on that area, but it needs to be spoken about more and we need more support in place.
There is a new endometriosis hub in Cork University Hospital, CUH, which is welcome. It needs to be properly resourced and staffed. This is another area that needs more investment and support. We do not talk about women's health issues a lot. As a society, we have not spoken about them and there is a lot of stigma and silence around women's health. Many women say they feel they are not listened to when they go to a GP and are not taken seriously.
The theme this year is "give to gain". Unfortunately, a report from ICTU today states that men make 3.5% more than women, on average. It depends on what profession one is looking at, but the gender pay gap still exists. We are doing much better in the Seanad, with 40% female representation compared to the Dáil. We need more women to enter politics. All of the rights we as women have were fought for and won, but rights can be taken away. In the context of the world at the moment, between Trump, the Epstein files and everything else we are seeing politically, we have to ensure we protect the rights we have and ensure they are not eroded.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-03-04/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:43+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-04