Housewives should not be ignored, according to the Church’s Employment Commission, which also welcomed Budget measures encouraging more women to work.

The commission said society should first show appreciation towards politicians who decided on measures that protected the quality of life within the family.

It noted the Government’s commitment to encourage the 51.5 per cent of unemployed women to work.

Women contributed to society in all sectors, even when staying at home to bring up citizens

EU and economic pressure and the advancement of women led to these measures but the commission said housewives’ voices should be heard.

The commission wondered whether the views housewives were being ignored and whether all women were respected.

Women contributed to society in all sectors – political, administrative, medical and educational – even when they chose to stay at home to bring up citizens with strong characters.

The commission augured that the State would help those women who chose to remain at home.

It said it believed that Sunday should remain a special day and although certain jobs entailed being carried out on Sunday, not every kind of work was permissible on the day of rest.

Referring to the White Paper on extended shopping hours, the commission said it felt it should speak up, even if it was the only one to do so.

Although times changed, people still needed time to rest and to live their faith, it added.

On precarious work, it noted that one of the difficulties was that there was no clear definition of the term.

Referring to Pope Francis’s visit to Sardinia a few weeks ago, where he said realities should be acknowledged as such, the commission said society would not be able to fight precarious work if it could shy away by claiming that it did not know what precarious work consisted of.