The pandemic has sucked up the majority of policy-making activity, so you’d be forgiven for wondering whether anything else is getting done. But there are occasional flashes of non-Covid-related policy-making, and recently period poverty emerged as an issue that is very curiously Bill-happy. So what’s happening?
Plenty of female politicians have raised the issue of period poverty – the struggle to afford sanitary pads and tampons – but it’s fair to say that in the party-political sphere, Labour Party Senator Rebecca Moynihan has been at the forefront. In 2018, Dublin City Council passed measures, proposed by Moynihan with Emma Murphy of Sinn Féin – both councillors at the time – to provide free sanitary products in buildings owned by the council. In 2019, Moynihan secured €100,000 in funding to provide these products in council-owned buildings across the city.
On the back of this work, at least in part, the Oireachtas Women’s Caucus brought a motion to the Dáil in March 2019. Sinéad Mercier drafted the motion, with input from Claire Hunt, who deserves huge credit as the founder of Homeless Period Ireland, a volunteer organisation that helps raise awareness of period poverty and gets period products to those in need. A decent debate ensued, with everyone in the Dáil that day agreeing that period poverty needed to be addressed.
Why would Clifford Lee double up on the work of her colleague? Maybe she had more to add? Unfortunately not
There were plenty of good contributions from the Green Party’s Catherine Martin (who remarked on her disappointment at the low attendance of men in the chamber), Sinn Féin’s Lynn Boylan, Bríd Smith and Ruth Coppinger (who referenced the work done by Sandra Kavanagh on Fingal County Council), Denise Mitchell, Marcella Corcoran Kennedy, Jan O’Sullivan, Róisín Shortall and others. Even Billy Kelleher referred to Moynihan’s work on the issue. During the debate, a Plan International survey was cited, which found that nearly half of teenage girls in Ireland struggle to afford sanitary towels and tampons.
Enter Fianna Fáil
Meanwhile, as a Bill on the provision of free period products was being progressed in Scotland, Moynihan engaged with the Scottish Labour politician Monica Lennon to inform what Ireland could do. Anyone in Ireland wise to the issue of period poverty and the provision of free period products knew Moynihan was working on a Bill. These are not backstage revelations. The Labour Party launched a survey on the issue, Moynihan has been on several radio programmes discussing her Bill, and her work has been widely reported. There was plenty of chatter on the Labour Party’s social media channels about period justice throughout January, and Moynihan hosted an online public meeting with Lennon in early January. Moynihan’s Bill was on the order of business of the Seanad in mid-January, and it passed the first stage. Moynihan has very openly cited the importance of Lennon and Hunt’s work informing her Bill. Happy days.
Enter Fianna Fáil Senator Lorraine Clifford Lee, and a new Bill of hers on the same issue appears on the order of business in late January, a week after the Labour Bill. This also passed the first stage. So now there are two Bills. Why would Clifford Lee double up on the work of her colleague? Maybe she had more to add? Unfortunately not. Clifford Lee, being Fianna Fáil, enjoys the benefit of being a member of a Government party, so the Government has an impetus to get behind her Bill.
What's so ridiculous about this saga is that accessing period products is a feminist issue
Here are the contents of Clifford Lee’s Bill (don’t worry, it won’t take long): “An Act to secure the provision of free period products. 1. (1) This Act may be cited as the Free Provision of Period Products Act 2021. (2) This Act shall come into operation on the day of its passing. 2. In this Act “period products” means manufactured articles the purpose of which is to absorb or collect menstrual flow. 3. Everyone who needs to use period products may obtain them free of charge. 4. The Minister for Health may, by regulation, make a scheme to set out and regulate access to free period products by those who need access to such products.” Sin é.
Cuckoo Bill
Having presumably seen a Labour colleague spending a few years working on the issue, Fianna Fáil strolls in with a Bill of its own – let’s call it a Cuckoo Bill, because it usurps the work already done by someone else and calls it its own. Not to be outdone by Moynihan, or Clifford Lee, Fine Gael senator Mary Seery Kearney then launched her own survey as she decided to tackle period poverty on behalf of Fine Gael.
Both Clifford Lee and Seery Kearney are adopting the stance of the lad in a meeting who repeats what a female colleague has just said and passes it off as his own idea. What’s so ridiculous about this saga is that accessing period products is a feminist issue. Why on Earth, if these Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Senators genuinely care about the issue, would they not row in behind Moynihan’s clearly superior Bill?
People are bored of politicians taking superficial and cynical positions, bandwagoning, and wanting to be seen to be doing the work, as opposed to actually doing it. And the public can see through it all. Period.