Women "sign on" to show enforced idleness

UP to 500 women took part in a "national signing on day" at social welfare offices yesterday as part of a campaign for recognition of women's unemployment.

The campaign is organised jointly by the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed and the National Women's Council. It highlights difficulties they say thousands of women have in getting access to social welfare entitlements and training and employment schemes because they have been out of the workforce for years on "home duty".

Ms Catherine Heeney, of the INOU, said: "Many women trying to get back into the workforce can't access training schemes because they are excluded from the live register." Many schemes are closed to women wishing to reenter the workforce after staying at home to rear children, she said.

The Employment Equality Agency estimates that if all potentially eligible women signed on, the live register would increase by up to 100,000.

In Dublin yesterday about 100 women marched from Christ Church Cathedral to the Social Welfare office in Werburgh Street for a "symbolic signing on". Special arrangements were made at the office to "facilitate" the demonstrators.

Other groups signed on in Nenagh, Athlone and Dundalk. In Maynooth, the president of the Irish Countrywomen's Association, Ms Bridin Twist, was among 50 women who signed on.

In response to the campaign, the Department of Social Welfare is to set up a working group to examine "the underlying issues" and make recommendations to the Government.

The group will include the INOU and women's organisations as well as the social partners and is expected to start early in the new year. At Christ Church an information officer from the Department issued a special leaflet informing women of their entitlements. The Department has also promised to provide information officers at all Social Welfare offices to inform women about their entitlements.

Ms Heeney said at the Dublin demonstration that many women did not know they could sign on separately from their husbands. They could split the payment and then both could apply for job schemes. She welcomed the Department of Social Welfare's promise to set up the working group and added that since the campaign began two months ago the number of women making inquiries had increased.