Women will continue to be "overburdened, underpaid and denied real equality of opportunity" as long as child-care is not properly dealt with, the Patrick MacGill Summer School has heard.
Speaking on the theme of "The Role of Women in the New Millennium", Ms Monica Barnes TD said that despite predictions of 90,000 jobs between now and the year 2000, women would miss out on the bonanza unless child-care facilities were provided in the community and workplace.
"Instead, anti-family and antisocial strictures and structures will mean that highly expert, technically trained and educated women will be forced to drop out of the workforce."
Although many couples depended on two incomes even to qualify for a mortgage, child-care was still regarded as a luxury, she said.
"There is still an assumption that if a mother wishes to continue working outside the home, then the price she will pay is to be responsible for searching for and paying for good quality child-care. This keeps the value of good child-care down and relegates all costs to the working couple."
Also speaking at the school in Glenties, Co Donegal, the equality officer of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions argued that membership of the European Union had been a watershed for Irish women.
Ms Rosaleen Glackin added that, side by side with EU directives on equal treatment and protection of pregnant mothers, demographic changes had dramatically altered women's lives and the choices available to them. Women lived longer, married later if at all, had fewer children and participated much more in the labour market.
Ms Glackin noted, however, that participation was still lower than the EU average, and said it was "hardly a coincidence" that we had the lowest state expenditure on child-care in the EU: "Until proper child-care is provided, the Irish economy and Irish society will not be able to utilise the full potential of women."
