SDLP assails North's maternity pay levels

NORTHERN Ireland has the worst maternity pay and conditions in Europe, in spite of the EU Pregnancy Directive, according to an SDLP discussion paper on women in public life in the North.

The document, called "Half the Future", has been published in advance of a party conference on women's issues to be held in Belfast next Saturday.

Introducing the paper yesterday, Cllr Brid Rogers said it had taken 30 years for women's pay to increase from half to three quarters of average male earnings. Women still accounted for little over one in 10 managers. It was clear there was still a need for "women's groups, women's papers and a women's lobby."

Ms Rogers said the "unusual nature of our political situation" meant gender and equality issues often had to play second fiddle to the "so called constitutional issues".

But while the Women's Coalition had "focused on an important area" since its participation in the forum elections last year, women could achieve more by getting involved in mainstream parties.

One of the SDLP's three women candidates in the forthcoming general election, Ms Marietta Farrell, said the Women's Coalition had been a "gift to the media", who reacted to it "as if women in politics had been invented for the first time".