Ireland’s record on women’s political representation at local, national and European level is very poor and disimproving, a report compiled by Senator Ivana Bacik has found.
Ms Bacik, who produced the report on behalf of the Oireachtas committe on justice, said legislation requiring political parties to adopt “gender targets or quotas” in their candidate selection process should be introduced.
“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,” the Labour Party Senator said.
Speaking at the launch of the report in Leinster House this morning, Ms Bacik there were now 23 women TDs out of 166 deputies and if nothing was done the situation would never improve. “We’ve assumed women’s participation would improve but it hasn’t.”
Ms Bacik said lack of financial resources was a major factor inhibiting women’s progress in politics.
The report recommended the establishment of a national fundraising campaign dedicated to raising money from private donors to finance women’s electoral campaigns. It also said state funding should be earmarked for women candidates until a certain target of representation is reached.
Ms Bacik said women no longer faced overt discrimination in their entry to politics, but the “overall masculine image of politics” remained as a powerful barrier.
The perception of childcare as purely a women’s responsibility should be challenged, and the issues of paternity leave and fathers’ rights should be looked at.
Ms Bacik said political party meeting times and venues should be reviewed and adjusted to accommodate the caring responsibilities of party members.
The rules and sitting times of the Oireachtas and of local councils should be changed to make them more “family-friendly”.
“Unless effective positive action measures are adopted, Ireland will continue to languish at the bottom of the international league tables for women’s representation, and our democracy will remain unfinished,” Ms Bacik said.
The report said parties should face financial penalties unless one-third of their candidates in the next general election were women. The legislation should be temporary and should include a “sunset clause” to ensure the law lapsed when targets were met, Ms Bacik said.
“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.
