A REPORT by Senator Ivana Bacik to be released today will recommend candidate quota legislation to bring more women into Irish politics.
Ms Bacik, who produced the report on behalf of the Oireachtas Subcommittee on Women’s Participation in Politics, said parties should face financial penalties unless one-third of their candidates in the next general election were women.
“We recommend that candidate quota legislation be adopted, modelled on the laws applied in France, Belgium and Spain, to oblige each political party to impose a maximum limit on the proportion of candidates of any one gender selected to run in elections at local, national and European levels,” she said.
Addressing the committee on the Constitution yesterday, Ms Bacik said the legislation should be temporary and should include a “sunset clause” to ensure the law lapsed when targets were met. She said there were 23 women TDs out of 166 deputies, putting the State in 84th position in the world classification of women’s representation in national parliaments. Ms Bacik said the challenges facing women entering politics could be summarised by “five Cs”: “childcare, cash, confidence, culture and candidate selection procedures”.
