I also welcome International Women’s Day. I was laughing to myself when I heard Senator Davitt talking about how he is in a house of women and is reminded how lucky he was. I was reared in a house of all boys. You only need one woman to remind you how lucky you are. My mother did that for many years. Now I am in a house with my wife and two boys and we are reminded once again how lucky we are to have that woman.

I ask that we have a debate with the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Coveney. We have not had one since his appointment to that Department. I want a debate on employment. We are quite lucky at the moment. We almost have 2.6 million people working in Ireland. That is the highest it has ever been. But there is one area where we are lagging, namely, employment for people with disabilities where we have the lowest percentage of employment for people with disabilities. One thing we could do is around government contracts. A European regulation permits government contracting authorities to reserve part of a contract to a company where more than 30% of its staff have disabilities. Across the EU, this regulation is widely used for charities such as Rehab to create sustainable and secure employment for people with disabilities. In Scotland, a sister company of Rehab, Haven Products, has secured multiple government contracts from document storage to destruction to PPE uniform production. It is an area which Ireland has not maximised.

Only 32% of those with disabilities are working in Ireland. In France, the rate is over 50% and the UK is almost at 50%. We are much lower than every other country in the EU. That needs to be rectified, especially when there are so many jobs available at the moment.

I also wish to be associated with International Women’s Day. It is an extremely important day. It is celebrated more in other countries than here. That has improved in recent years and rightly so. I support Senator Ahearn’s proposal that we have a debate with the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment specifically on the area of employment for people with disabilities. As Senator Ahearn rightly said the employment rate is just over 30% and for blind and visually impaired people in proper employment in this country, it is only just over 15%. That is far below European comparisons. We need a carrot and a stick. The carrot needs to be funding from the Government to ensure that companies can purchase the necessary accessibility equipment. Many companies are frightened by the cost of the necessary equipment but it is actually not that dear. There are schemes but there are not enough and they are not properly funded. That is something that needs to be looked at. There needs to be a stick as well, in that there is a target in the public service of 6%. That needs to be met and where it is not met, there needs to be some sort of punishment or stick.

Then in the private sector, there are billions of euro worth of contracts awarded by the State every year. There should be some sort of charter within those contracts where companies that are tendering for the contracts can demonstrate that they are meeting their obligations to be equal in terms of employment. Where a company has no record or a very poor record of employing people from a diverse background or people with disabilities, then they should suffer in terms of State contracts. It should be part of the criteria of a State contract that the companies that tender for these contracts and are awarded them have fulfilled their obligations around equality.