Madam, Garret FitzGerald (Opinion, September 11th) voices another lament regarding the lack of female public representatives. As a solution, he offers a list system and change of the Oireachtas working schedule.
My solution is more quickly and easily implemented – why not vote for the women candidates that we already have?
Unless and until voters, and especially women voters, vote for the female candidates who put themselves forward, we will never have gender-balanced town or county councils or a gender-balanced Oireachtas.
Speaking as a woman, I have never experienced bias against me in the selection process for town and county council.
In the last local elections here in Co Wicklow, we had superb female candidates right across party lines. Despite that, there is only one woman on Wicklow County Council, out of 24, and only one woman, myself, on Greystones Town Council, out of nine representatives.
Why don’t people vote for women? Mná na hÉireann, where were you when we needed you most? – Yours, etc,