Lord Mayor calls for action on gender equality and secure affordable housing

The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Alison Gilliland, says women’s voices, women’s parity and women’s equality need to be put centre-stage going forward.

Speaking at the ICTU Biennial Delegate Conference in Belfast today, the Lord Mayor said that “women in particular were impacted disproportionately by the pandemic – many faced life and death, day in day out, on our hospital frontlines, many working from home ended up working longer hours juggling work and home responsibilities or reducing working hours or giving up/forgoing further education or training opportunities to look after children and elderly family matters.

“We saw levels of domestic and gender based violence against women increase.”

“We also witnessed the lack of women’s voices and perspectives around the national decision making table – at one stage in the lessening of restrictions you could go play golf but you couldn’t get your child’s foot measured for shoes!”

The Lord Mayor also called for action on the issue of secure affordable housing.

“While budget allocations for housing have increased, we are still massively inhibited by bureaucracy, such as the 4 stage social housing approval process and public procurement procedures, and by the lack of autonomy and capacity to the extent that it’s not unfair to say that we spend more time on paperwork than we do putting one block on top of the other.”

“The other challenge that we are grappling with in this area is that housing is no longer viewed as the provision of homes and the creation of sustainable communities,” said the Lord Mayor.

“Rather housing is viewed as a global commodity that is traded back and forth among investors and funds to make profits and build assets on balance sheets.”

The Lord Mayor also paid tribute to the essential role of trade unions in protecting and advocating for workers.

She said the Covid 19 pandemic demonstrated how resilient and innovative workers are and that they are an asset to any employer.