International Women's Day: On average, Irish women earn 85 per cent of men's earnings for doing the same job.

* Education does not eradicate this difference. The higher the level of education, the greater the wage gap - for example, women in the EU with a university education earn 32 per cent less than men with similar qualifications, whereas women with no qualifications beyond basic schooling earn 22 per cent less.

* In the UK and other EU countries, progress towards equal pay has moved into reverse, with the gap widening again.

* Women opting out of paid work to care for family are deemed to be "not working" by our economic system, yet are not entitled to unemployment compensation given to those who are actually not working.

* Similarly, the work of those who care for ageing parents or other dependants at home is not counted in the GDP/GNP, although if these dependants were sent to a nursing home or institution, they and their caretaker would become job-creating assets.

* If two full-time homemakers were to cross the street and work for each other's partners, they would be entitled to an eight-hour day, a 40-hour week and a minimum wage. At home, they are entitled to nothing.

* Only 3 per cent of women, after a lifetime of paid and/or unpaid work, are able to support themselves without help from government or family.

* 51 per cent of the population are women but just 13 per cent of TDs are women.