Chapter 5

Employment

5.1 Women's Work

A report in the "Irish Times" (Healy, 20/11/02) quoted the Minister of State with responsibility for Labour Affairs, Mr. Frank Fahey's belief that women currently working in the home could displace foreign workers by entering the labour force.  Mr. Fahey was speaking at the launch of a new FAS programme called "Gateway for Women", which is specifically geared to the needs of women returning to employment.  The Minister is quoted as saying that it was 'quite remarkable' that so many women did not appear to availing of job opportunities, while 36,000 work permits had been issued to non-EU Nationals.  A representative from the National Women's Council, Ms.Grainne Healy, pointed out in the article that lack of affordable childcare was one barrier, frequently then added to in later life by lack of appropriate elder care.

In Inishowen, the nationwide experience of lack of childcare is only one issue - of primary importance to women here is the lack of suitable jobs locally (see Section 5.3).  The Inishowen Partnership's Area Action Plan Summary (2001-2003) acknowledges that the employment market in the Peninsula is decreasing and that neither the economic nor technological infrastructure is available to attract new industry.  It is, therefore, not at all remarkable that women in Inishowen, who form part of Ireland's large group of women seeking to return to employment (according to Minister Fahey) are not queuing up to displace foreign workers.  While childcare issues take centre stage for women in cities like Dublin or Cork, they are obscured in places like Inishowen where jobs are, quite literally, few and far between. 

5.2 Paid Work

One in three (34) of the current sample of women have no paid work; fourteen of these women were seeking employment at the time of the survey, of which less than half (6) were represented on the live register (see also Figure 5).  More than half of those without a paid job (18) were working full-time in the home.  The remaining women (9) were retired, suffered from ill health or disabilities, or were pursuing further education.   Table 13 gives a breakdown of paid work by the marital status of the women surveyed, including whether the work was full-time, part-time or various FAS, social economy or community schemes.  From this table, it can be seen that 1 in 6 of the women as a whole is in full-time employment; more than one third of the reminder are in some form of part-time employment (less than 34 hours per week).  Only 1 in 7 of a total of fifty-six married women in this survey is in full-time employment.