Response to the Second Report of the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Human Rights,

Published: Tuesday, March 09, 2010

The National Women's Council of Ireland invites the committee to listen to a news report from today's Irish Times. The story is headlined: Cabinet agrees 30 diplomatic posts in major reshuffle, and it is by DEAGLÁN de BRÉADÚN, Political CorrespondentWed, Mar 10, 2010MINISTER FOR Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin secured approval for 30 new ambassadorial nominations at the weekly meeting of the Cabinet yesterday, in one of the biggest diplomatic reshuffles of recent years.All of the nominees are subject to formal approval by the host governments, although there is normally no difficulty in this regard.As an economy measure, some positions are being filled at a lower salary grade than normal.In the case of nine of the posts, the outgoing ambassador is retiring from the department.Those who are retiring include Antóin Mac Unfraidh in Athens, who is being succeeded by Charles Sheehan from EU division in headquarters at Iveagh House; Tony Mannix in Berne, succeeded by Martin Burke, who is currently Ambassador to Luxembourg; and Michael Hoey in Brazil, succeeded by Frank Sheridan, currently Ambassador to Mozambique.Others in this category are Brian Nason in Brussels, succeeded by Tom Hanney, currently joint secretary in charge of the North-South Ministerial Council in Armagh; Martin Greene in Budapest, succeeded by John Deady, currently Ambassador to Iran; Pat McCabe in Ljubljana, Slovenia, succeeded by Tom Brady, currently Ambassador to Cyprus; Dick O'Brien in Singapore, succeeded by Joe Hayes, currently Ambassador to Denmark; Tom Bolster in Tallinn, succeeded by Peter McIvor, currently in the political division; and Frank Cogan in Vienna, succeeded by Jim Brennan, currently Ambassador to Portugal.The other 21 nominations at ambassador level are as follows – Nigeria: Paddy Fay, currently in Lesotho; Joint Secretary in Armagh: Anne Barrington, currently in Tanzania; Argentina: James McIntyre, currently in political division; Egypt: Isolde Moylan, currently in political division; Denmark: Brendan Scannell, currently in Japan; Tanzania: Lorcan Fullam, currently in Department of the Taoiseach; Malaysia: Declan Kelly, currently in Canada; Portugal: Declan O'Donovan, currently in Poland; Luxembourg: Diarmuid O'Leary, currently in Irish Aid; Mozambique: Ruairí de Búrca, currently in Anglo-Irish division; Lesotho: Gerry Gervin, currently in Irish Aid; Cyprus: Pat Scullion, currently Consul General in Sydney; Canada: Ray Bassett, currently head of consular division; South Africa: Brendan McMahon, currently in Latvia; Bulgaria: John Rowan, currently in EU division; Iran: Oliver Grogan, currently in Anglo-Irish Division; Japan: John Neary, currently head of Promoting Ireland Abroad division; Malta: Jim Hennessy, currently in political division; Lithuania: Philomena Murnaghan, currently in Argentina; Poland: Eugene Hutchinson, currently in Malaysia; Latvia: Aidan Kirwan, currently first secretary in Russia.A number of outgoing ambassadors are returning to senior positions at Iveagh House, including Kyle O'Sullivan, currently in Nigeria; Colin Wrafter in South Africa; Geoffrey Keatinge in Bulgaria; Gerry O'Connor in Malta; and Donal Denham in Lithuania.It is understood that four of the 30 ambassadorships are being filled at first-secretary level, which is below the normal grade for such a position. This is the first time ambassadorships are being filled at this level, but the Government is not specifying the posts in question so as to avoid giving offence to the host government.Secretary general of the department David Cooney told the Dáil's public accounts committee last January that a 'lighter structure' was being introduced at Irish missions in some EU member states, but there were no plans to close missions as it was important to have someone 'on the ground'.© 2010 The Irish TimesNow, this is not a remarkable story. It is from page 9, beside a fashion report which shows a woman striding down a catwalk in a skirt and shirt whose designer is said to have been 'playing with masculine tailoring in a girlish way'. It is an uncontroversial list. The host governments are not expected to be surprised or alarmed. What would be remarkable is if we swopped the genders of those listed. What if the cabinet was sending out Annette, and Carole and Tina and Mary; Michelle and Francine and Bernadette and Clare; Jane and Patricia and Josephine and Pauline; Mairead and Sarah, Laura and Anne…. Do you see what I mean? There are 44 people named in this list of appointments and replacements and just two are women. It is like one of those Old Testament passages; And Anton begat Charles and Charles begat Tony and Tony begat Martin… and so on.When is this going to stop? Try applying this exercise to other pages of the papers. Bishop Denise O'Mangan calls on parishioners to pay up for abuses carried out on children by hundreds of women priests. Meanwhile we are still waiting for a statement from the Pope – however, she is not expected to apologise. Taoiseach Brenda Cowen has called on the women who run the banks to tell her how much public money they need. Meanwhile traumatised men are filing into the courts to talk about terrifying ordeals at the hands of female rapists.The National Women's Council applauds the excellent work done by this committee. We want to quote to you a statement which was made at our celebration of International Women's Day earlier this week, by a woman who has learned much about how Irish society works in her 8 decades of life in this country. Sylvia Meehan is currently President of the Senior Citizens Parliament. She was the first chairperson and later CEO of the Equality Agency and she was one of the founders of the Council for the Status of Women, which became the National Women's Council. She told our delegates the following: 'The heart of the matter lies in political power. We need strong political representation in the Dail…the political parties will get gender balance if we insist on it.'And that is what we must do. We must insist that this outrageous obliviousness to the absence of women is stopped, and we must insist that this finally be treated as a matter of urgency. Turning to the content of the report. The opening statistics are, by any standards, shocking. They bear restating. The Dail has always been at least 86% male, and women's representation has 'reduced drastically' since 1990, when we thought we were on the crest of a wave of change with the election of Mary Robinson as President. Then we were 37th in the world classification, now we are 84th. In short, the Dail has one of the highest proportions of male politicians in the world. The report notes that it is 'universally acknowledged that balanced participation by women and men in political decision making leads to more truly representative and effective democracies'. It quotes the UN's Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and it quotes our own National Women's Strategy with its objective to increase the number of women in decision making positions.The NWS was published in 2007, described by the then Taoiseach as a 'shining light' for the world. In the same year, in 60% of constituencies neither Fianna Fail nor Fine Gael put forward any women candidates. In fact, in 12% of Dail constituencies, an all male ticket was presented.We must act upon the statement of the European Commission for Democracy Through Law, that 'political parties play a prominent role for balancing gender representation in parliament since they nominate the candidates for elections. The nomination process is the most critical one for women's access to parliament.' Voters can only choose candidates the parties put forward. The report usefully points out that this situation puts us in breach of our international obligations under the Council of Europe's 2003 recommendation and the European Road Map for equality, and under the Beijing Platform for Action, currently under review in New York, of which more presently. It quotes CEDAW's assertion that 'temporary special measures' to accelerate equality shall not be considered discriminatory.The National Women's Council of Ireland calls upon the government to introduce such measures, and on all of the political parties represented in the Houses of the Oireachtas, to endorse, support and, most importantly of all, actually implement them. No more lip service. As Professor Yvonne Galligan notes in her excellent contribution to the report, 'Those countries in which women's representation in parliament is 30% or more are the ones that have in place affirmative action policies.' As Gemma Hussey further points out: 'nothing works voluntarily.' The Report on Women's Participation in Politics has shown the way – there is no excuse for any futher delay in addressing this persistent and entirely unnecessary problem.A number of measures are identified in the report. All the 5 'C''s need to be addressed. Childcare, cash, confidence, culture and candidate selection procedures. To quote: 'A whole package of reforms is necessary.' We need to recognise that men are responsible for children as well as women. We need paternity leave. We need good childcare policies. We need to organise the rules and times of parliamentary sittings to reflect the fact that deputies have family responsibilities as well as jobs.The National Women's Council welcomes the suggestion under 'potential initiatives which may encourage more women to consider a career in politics' that a data bank of potential women candidates should be developed. We would be happy to discuss undertaking this task. Leadership training and support for networks is also crucial. The demolition of the Community Development Programme which had supported women's networks in communities around the country in last December's budget – many of them members of the NWCI – is to be deplored in this context. Quotas do not discriminate – they compensate for discrimination. For too long, women have had to depend upon dynastic succession to get into Irish politics, or other flukes of fortune. Or they have had to be exceptional.Quotas are, as the report notes, already widely used in other categories in nomination processes. This needs to be highlighted by advertising campaigns and other measures so that the myth that a woman who gets into politics through a quota is less capable than a man who would have got through no matter now slender his talent. As we stated in our submission to the Committee last year, the NWCI believes that we need a quota system whereby the political parties are obliged to nominate not less than 40% of candidates of either sex. We agree with the statement from Peters and Suter that this can only work if there is strict enforcement. We need legislation, timetables and targets and we need enforced compliance.The National Women's Council has been in discussion with Minister John Moloney and we are pleased to note that progress is being made towards the setting up of a committee on women in decision making. He has stated to us, and to the European Women's Lobby, that he is committed to bringing about real change in this area. We also welcome the fact that Minister Moloney has met with Senator Ivana Bacik, and that he is to call a meeting of general secretaries of the political parties in the near future. Senator Bacik is the most passionate campaigner in the Oireachtas for this crucial reform, and we commend her commitment to it. She is to attend this meeting and so is the NWCI.Minister Moloney is in New York at present, and he yesterday addressed delegates to the 54th session of the commission on the status of women, which he is attending. We feel that he may have understated things somewhat when he said that while women were moving in increasing numbers into managerial and professional roles, 'they are less frequently to be found in politics.' We also regret that he did not comment on the swingeing cuts the government made to the budgets of the National Women's Strategy last year. We are amazed by his reference to 'increased child benefit'. As one of the feminist Non governmental organisations attending the Commission, the NWCI has signed up to a statement criticising the level of real engagement by participating governments.We have identified the problem many times over. The Committee has given us a fresh start. It is time for action. We are going to take on board the wise words of Sylvia Meehan. The heart of the matter is political power. To this end, we are adopting a campaign which has been pioneered in the UK by our sister organisation, the Fawcett Society. The campaign will complement our Spot the Woman campaign – the one which brought to our attention the article I quoted at the start of this submission. It is called 'What About Women?' The Fawcett campaign is specifically geared towards asking political parties in the UK key questions in advance of the 2010 elections to Westminster. We are not, perhaps, facing an election quite so imminently. So we are going to start in Ireland with a series of questions which are simply about democracy and political reform. We will address these in the first instance to the leaders and general secretaries of the political parties. We have four questions:Will you support the NWCI's call for quotas at candidate selection level? What other means will you use to increase the number and diversity of women in the Dail and government at national and local levels?What will you do to ensure the voices of women are heard and acted upon by decision makers?How will you support a vibrant and sustainable women's voluntary and community sector?This last question is particularly important in the Irish context.We want answers, and we look forward to having the support of this committee in making sure that the answers we get are serious and capable of bringing about the real change we so urgently need in this country.Thank you.Susan McKayDirectorThe National Women's Council of Ireland