The social welfare system facilitates and causes gender inequality, a major new report claims.
The report, commissioned by the National Women's Council of Ireland, calls for wide-ranging reforms, including new methods of assessing welfare entitlements which recognise women's economic independence within the family.
According to the report, maternity benefit should be extended from 18 to 26 weeks. It also calls for paid parental leave for parents of young children. Part-time parental leave for parents of children up to the age of 11 should also be introduced, it adds.
The current welfare system fails to give "adequate recognition" to women's unpaid caring work, the report, titled A Woman's model for Social Welfare Reform says.
This results in higher than average risks of poverty by women engaged in caring work for long periods.
The chairwoman of the council, Ms Mary Kelly, said the findings showed the social welfare system model here was an outdated model "premised" upon the "idea of the male bread-winner". It highlighted a notion of women as adult dependants which made it impossible for them to be economically independent.
She added that there were many invisible categories of women whose eligibility for benefits was being masked under the current system.
Although the Government had begun to address some of the issues, a "more thorough review" was required. She called the report an "incremental guide" to this process.
Ms Kelly was addressing representatives from women's groups in the community and voluntary sector, social welfare agencies, the Gender Equality Unit, social policy experts and the Civil Service. She said the new system must place more value in women's unpaid care which is "indispensable" to social and economic life here.
The report recommends the introduction of a social insurance board with adequate representation from gender equality interests, including the NWC. It also calls on the Government to develop a Green Paper on independent entitlement for women.
The report says implementation of the reforms would require administrative changes and extra resources as well as a national information campaign aimed at women to clarify their new entitlements.
The Minister of State for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr Willie O'Dea, welcomed the report and said it was a "a comprehensive overview".
He said the Homemakers Scheme, which allows for periods spent out of work caring for children or relatives to be disregarded when a person's contribution record is being averaged for pension purposes, was being reviewed.
He reiterated the Government's commitment to increasing the rate and flexibility at which the qualified adult allowance is paid. The current Government target is to increase the level of minimum pensions to €200 a week by 2007, he added.
Main Recommendations
• Maternity benefit to be extended from 18 to 26 weeks.
• The introduction of paid parental leave benefit for parents of
young children and part-time parental leave for parents of
children up to the age of 11.
• The introduction of new part-time unemployment benefit for
parents of children up to age 12.
• The qualified adult allowance for all old-age pensions to be
increased to 100 per cent of the non-contributory old-age
pensions and paid directly to the woman where eligible.
• The introduction of a mechanism to facilitate care of older and
infirm people by consolidating carer's benefit and carer's
allowance into a "wage".
• Specific reforms of social insurance contribution rules to
enable relatives assisting, including spouses of farmers/self-
employed, to be ensured as employees.
• Reform of eligibility for credits which would enable a extra
credit for homemakers re-entering the system.