Senator Higgins welcomes the launch of the Report on Gender Budgeting from the Committee on Budgetary Oversight. The report contains several important recommendations including that the annual budget statement should be accompanied by an equality budget statement - something which Senator Higgins has long called for.
The report also stressed the importance of collecting gender disaggregated data. There is currently a significant lack of usable data which is impeding the implementation of the gender budgeting processes.
Gender budgeting is not a new concept. Many countries, including Austria and Scotland, have successfully implemented strong gender budgeting mechanisms which have yielded positive results for gender equality.
Last year, Senator Higgins hosted Christina McKelvie, a member of the Scottish Parliament and Convenor of its Equalities and Human Rights Committee and Emma Ritch from Engender Scotland in Leinster House to meet with members of the women's caucus and members of the Budgetary Oversight Committee to discuss the programmes which they had implemented in Scotland.
Senator Higgins will continue to push for further progress in the implementation of gender and equality budgeting and, in particular, will be calling, once again, for a gender and equality statement to accompany Budget 2019.
The proposal, due to be voted on by the parliament this week, in the last plenary session before the elections, would limit decisions on the work programme of the European Defence Fund to the European Commission and committees through “implementation acts”, effectively bypassing debate, criticism or approval from MEPs.
During the Seanad debate on the Social Welfare Bill 2017, Senator Higgins raised several concerns with the Minister for Employment and Social Protection about the introduction of the Public Services Card and the heavy-handed manner in which the roll-out has been conducted.