More needed to tackle women’s Dáil under-representation

Published: Thursday, December 15, 2011

HALF OF the Irish people are women. Last week, an 85 per cent male Government produced a budget which will lead to the impoverishment of thousands of Irish women and children, and which imposed a crippling 35 per cent cut to State funding for the National Women's Council of Ireland.

"Difficult decisions are never easy," as our Taoiseach so memorably said in his pre-budget state-of-the-nation address. Indeed - but they are a hell of a lot easier to implement when the voices of those who might speak out against them are excluded, and the organisations which advocate for them disempowered.

Change, however, is coming. Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan yesterday published the Electoral Amendment Political Funding Bill 2011. This will require parties to ensure at least 30 per cent of the candidates they put forward for election are women. Failure to comply will lead to State funding being halved.

The National Women's Council welcomes the Bill, and commends the Minister. We have been campaigning for such legislation for decades, following a long tradition going back to the Irish Suffrage Society in the 1870s.

Exactly 100 years ago in December 1911, a British government enacted a Bill allowing women in Ireland to stand for election to local authorities. Women over 30 got the vote in 1918 and full suffrage was introduced in 1928. Yet only 91 women have ever been elected to the Dáil.

Click here to read the full article by Susan McKay in the Irish Times.....