Regina’s ‘dad-shaming’ is hypocritical nonsense

IT’S fair to say that, with a few honourable exceptions, our politicians have never distinguished themselves as visionaries. Of the thousands of elected representatives who have passed through Dáil Éireann perhaps the late Donogh O’Malley stands out for introducing free secondary education, the reform that had the single most transformative effect on the country. Charlie Haughey for all his sins, also had a rare flair for innovation, establishing Aosdána and free travel for the elderly.

Fine Gael, under Garret FitzGerald, attempted to put the country on a pluralist footing, a project that culminated, after several decades of frustration, in the referendums for marriage equality and repeal of the Eighth. Otherwise most politicians contend themselves with tinkering on the edge of reform, which, as we shall see, may be no bad thing.

For thanks to Regina Doherty we have just had an example of the finger-wagging moralising that awaits us should politicians have ideas about moulding society in their own image.

While announcing a new parental leave payment of two weeks, rising to seven weeks eventually, the Social Protection Minister ticked off fathers for using the small size of the payment as an excuse for the low take-up of paternity leave, adding that she wanted to ‘start a conversation about gender roles’.

Her fervent hope, she added, is that parental leave will change mindsets and actions ‘making it acceptable and possible for both parents to become actively involved’ in early childcare. Now Regina Doherty is as entitled to her own thoughts on society, as any citizen is, but her job as a politician is to create conditions whereby parents have greater choice over their lives, not to coax them in her preferred direction.

She is a Government Minister in charge of a big spending department that bears an extraordinary influence on peoples’ lives, in the form of welfare supports and policies. Surely she has enough to do in targeting welfare to optimise human potential and the quality of life, rather than dabbling in social engineering or poking her nose into family life.

There’s also the fact that she

lacks any expertise or professional acumen on childcare or parental roles. She has a degree in marketing from DIT and ran a failed computer company with her husband.

If she came from a social work background like Frances Fitzgerald or an academic one like Michael D Higgins, or was steeped in women’s politics like many veteran TDs, she would speak with wisdom and experience. She is not a conviction politician like Clare Daly, who has the intellectual heft to sustain an ideological position, no matter how unpopular.

When it came to repealing the Eighth Amendment, like many Fine Gael politicians, Regina embarked on a ‘journey’ that conveniently allowed her to change sides so that her vote chimed, not just with the popular mood, but also her party position.

Like it or not, she appears, like most jobbing politicians, a weathervane who parrots whatever platitudes are in the ether to harness public approval. But her contention that men should take on more of the caring role in society exposed not just her arrogance but also an ivory tower mentality that is startling, given her past money troubles and the fact that she is a mother of four.

Everyone on nodding terms with modern families knows that the division of labour today is more shaped by affordability than gender and that, with the CSO reporting that females are still more likely to earn the minimum wage or less, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that domestic life usually falls on the fairer sex.

It’s also the case that just as high mortgages and childcare costs keep fathers in the workplace, and unable to avail of Regina Doherty’s new paternity stipend, they also shut women out of the workplace. A recent ESRI study provided statistical proof, for the first time, of the link between childcare costs and the lower rates of employment among women.

The report showed that parents with one child aged three typically spent 12% of their disposable income on childcare, the figure increasing for multiple children and lower income households.

If Regina Doherty genuinely desires more gender balance at home then, rather than upbraiding fathers for shying away from chores and childcare, she should have her Government press the business community to have workplace creches and more

family-friendly work practices.

Except it takes guts and an independent spirit to go against Fine Gael’s pro-business religion. So why not stick it to dads instead.