POLITICAL PARTIES need to nominate more women candidates for election and focus more on issues that concern women, European Commission vice-president Margot Wallström said yesterday.
Speaking at a meeting of the National Women's Council in Dublin, Ms Wallström said women should not leave the decision-making and agenda-setting to men. "We cannot depend on them to give priority to issues that women consider important. No democracy without equality."
She said women were needed in politics and in positions of leadership to focus the attention of governments on security in its broadest sense, to push for better policies on health, education, development and world trade, and on combating climate change.
Ms Wallström said representative democracy without gender equality was a contradiction in terms. "How can democracy be credible and representative unless the people are represented and governed by equal numbers of men and women?"
She said women would find it easier to tackle issues such as childcare and domestic violence if they were given an equal say in policy-making, helping to put an end to the gender discrimination that was still common in many EU countries.
Answering a question from Kirsty Hanafin of the Labour Party, Ms Wallström said she would be in favour of political gender quotas. "Quotas are not an offence to women as we have enough qualified people among us; they rebalance an imbalance that comes with men choosing men."
National Women's Council of Ireland chairwoman Maura Butler called on political parties in Ireland to actively recruit women.
She said the capacity of the political system to represent women was seriously diminished as only 13 per cent of TDs and 19 per cent of local councillors in Ireland today were women.