An Independent Senator has hit out at the celebration of International Women’s Day (IWD) as “all talk and no action” and said it has done nothing for women who are poor, homeless or in addiction.
Senator Eileen Flynn said this year’s theme is “give to gain”. She visited the Saol Project which provides services for women recovering from addiction.
“They are giving it their all and gain f**k all.”
Speaking in the Seanad she said “we come in here every year with the same old copy and paste speeches about how much we want to stop poverty for women and be inclusive to women. It breaks my heart and boils my blood. Really boils my blood. There’s been little or no action.”
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In an angry contribution as the House this week marked IWD, which takes place on Sunday, the deputy chair of the Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community said the day had been marked for decades.
She first heard of it in 2018. “There are women looking at us standing up and congratulating ourselves ‘aren’t we the best in the world for helping poor women’. God help us.”
She spoke of the women recovering from addiction who had their children taken from them by child and family services. “A lot of these women have been clean for the past two or three years and have little or no supports.”
The Donegal-based Senator recalled being in a refuge with her mother in 1996 who was told “‘oh, you’re here for respite’”.
“It’s still the same today as it was for women like my mother. I see it with members of the Traveller community and with women from other ethnic minority groups.”
Women and children are living in hubs and hotels but “we come in here, do-gooders talking about our great work, and that we brought in a few women so we are absolutely brilliant”.
Originally from Ballyfermot in Dublin, Flynn said “there’s a certain type of women that we bring into Leinster House. We bring in the ‘good Travellers’, the ‘good black women’, we bring in the ‘good’ women who are not in addiction, the ones who are educated and have a degree.
“What about the women in the Dóchas prison? What about the women who are homeless? What about women like my sister, who is homeless at the moment who is an alcoholic,” who was “failed by this State” and “failed by women’s organisations just like many other members of the Traveller community”.
There were women she said “giving it their all through a health service that’s on its knees” and would not be standing without migrant women workers.
Men were also part of gender equality “but they have also been part of disempowering women for many decades.
“We talk about men at the top. I’ve never seen a black man at the top in Irish society. I have never seen a Traveller man at the top. I have never seen the ordinary working class man at the top or around these tables. We are very hypocritical.”
Flynn told colleagues she worked with the National Traveller Women’s Forum before becoming a Senator and was “a token and a poster woman for all these women’s organisations.
“It got me a platform here today, but I am sick to death of us talking about strategies and inclusion, inclusion, inclusion. It means absolutely nothing unless we have action.”
She was “pigeonholed” and asked “why is it always the woman who happens to be a member of the Traveller community who’s held accountable for 40,000 Travellers”.
Flynn said she would keep “chipping away” for the women living in poverty, going through addiction and “the women who are giving it their all and gaining f**k all”.
