Sharon Keogan demands action on carers' rights and HRT rollout

First of all, I would like to extend my congratulations to all the women who have been recently elected to both the Dáil and the Shannad in the last election. I look forward to working with you all in the coming season and wish you all the best in your endeavours. In both houses, we have the highest number of female deputies and senators elected in the history of the state. Here in the Shannad, nearly half of our members are now women, arguably making the closest an Irish elected body has ever been to gender parity. Secondly, this coming International Women's Day will be marking another anniversary, the comprehensive defeat of the government's attempt to eliminate women from the Constitution. This time last year, I and a few other senators found we were lone voices in calling for the public to reject the government's motion and thank God the public answered. Luckily, while virtually the entire leadership of our political parties, nearly all of our government-sponsored NGO complex and the vast majority of the established media were gung-ho to eliminate women from the Constitution, the Irish people themselves were not so easily fooled. However, now that the constitutional rights for women and carers are secured, we urgently need to move forward in making concrete improvements in their lives. Ninety per cent of the carers in Ireland are women and the current regulations on the carers' allowance are in many cases actively harming them. Recently, Mead County Council passed a motion from Councillor Carol Lennon for the 18 and a half hour limit on work imposed on recipients of the carers' alarms to be disregarded for cases of study, education, training and volunteering. I call on the government to heed this motion. The current work limits stops carers from being able to upscale by preventing them from pursuing continued education. This causes far too many women to miss out on years and even decades of professional development, meaning that by the time they return to the workforce, they do so at a considerably lower pay grade. The carers' allowance, while an invaluable lifeline, is not an adequate compensation for this. The government must also finally deliver on its promise to abolish mead testing for the carers' allowance, as many carers are married women who are already dependent on their spouse, and this means testing increases their dependency, leaving them open to financial abuse. In short, when it comes to the position of women in Ireland, we can summarise today's situation with the old adage. A lot done and a lot more to do. Finally, Minister, I understand you had a meeting this afternoon with the Irish Pharmaceutical, Irish Pharmacy Union in relation to the free HRT. I don't know whether it was today or whether it was yesterday, the free HRT. I think we were all, all the women in the country were thinking this was going to be rolled out as part of the budget. It was all going to be free in January of this year. The perception was that women in Ireland would be getting this free. Could you please let the women of Ireland know where that is, why the delay, and when the rollout would take place. But thank you very much for joining us here today. Thank you.