SOME WOMEN TDs have criticised calls from an Oireachtas committee to introduce temporary legislation to require political parties to adopt quotas or gender targets in their candidate selection process.
Senator Ivana Bacik, who produced the Women’s Participation in Politics report for the Oireachtas justice committee, said this would be the single most effective reform to encourage women into politics.
However, Fianna Fáil TD Mary O’Rourke said her views on quotas were well-known. “I think it’s discrimination of another kind,” she said. “You just have to have a big brass neck and go out there and do it. There’s no other way.”
Labour deputy Joanna Tuffy said she personally was not in favour of quota legislation, and Independent TD Maureen O’Sullivan said she would “hate to see a quota system”.
However, the publication of the report was generally welcomed by the TDs and Senators, mostly women, attending the launch yesterday. It found Ireland’s record on women’s political representation at local, national and European level very poor and getting worse.
Labour’s Liz McManus said the gender imbalance in the Dáil made it a “dysfunctional parliament”. She added: “The idea that we can simply stay as we are I find deeply depressing and I just don’t accept it.” The report recommended the establishment of a national data bank of potential women candidates.
It said parties should face financial penalties unless one-third of their candidates in the next general election are women. Lack of financial resources was a major factor inhibiting women’s progress in politics, the report said.
It recommended the establishment of a national campaign to raise money from private donors for women’s electoral campaigns.
State funding should be earmarked for women candidates until a certain target of representation is reached, it said. Party meeting times and venues, such as pubs, should be reviewed to accommodate the caring responsibilities of party members.
The perception of childcare as purely a women’s responsibility should be challenged, and greater attention given to issues such as paternity leave and fathers’ rights.
Ms Bacik said there were now 23 women TDs out of 166 deputies and, if nothing was done, the situation would continue to disimprove. “We’ve assumed women’s participation would improve but it hasn’t.” She stressed the proposed legislation should have a “sunset clause” to ensure the law lapsed when targets were met.
“In 1990, when Mary Robinson was elected as our first women president, we were at 37th place in the world classification of women’s representation in the single or lower house of national parliament . . . but by October of this year, we had fallen to 84th position in the world.”
Ms Bacik said women no longer faced overt discrimination when entering politics, but the “overall masculine image of politics” remained a powerful barrier.
