idea of "quotas" for women in politics,

Published: Thursday, August 05, 2010

Senator Ivana Bacik - OPINION: The Senator, who has championed gender quotas in the selection of political candidates, responds to yesterday's Irish Times survey which found that a big majority of women TDs are against the idea

MARY MINIHAN'S survey of women TDs, published in The Irish Times yesterday, shows that despite the traditional resistance to the idea of "quotas" for women in politics, there is still a good deal of support for the introduction of such a measure among those already elected to the Dáil.
I very much welcome the fact that so many serving women TDs were willing to go on record as supporting the adoption of binding targets, or quotas, within the political party selection process.
Although I am disappointed that the Minister, Mary White, has personally expressed doubt about the adoption of quotas, I am confident that as Minister of State for Equality she will continue to work on the introduction of measures to improve the levels of women in Irish politics. Indeed, she has already started the process, initiated by the Joint Oireachtas Justice Committee report on women in politics referred to in Mary Minihan's article.
The starting point for any discussion of women's political representation in Ireland must be the figures. Many people do not realise just how few women are in the Dáil - a mere 13 per cent of our TDs, an appallingly low figure by both European and international standards. In fact, the justice committee report, which I authored and which was published last year, sets out clear evidence that unless political parties are obliged to adopt targets for the number of women candidates they select, there will never be any significant increase in the number of women TDs.
There are many reasons why we need to increase the numbers of women entering politics.
First, without more women TDs, our democracy is not truly representative. This means that voter choice in Ireland is severely restricted. In the 2007 general election, women constituted only 17 per cent of candidates overall. At least 60 per cent of constituencies had no women candidates from either of the two largest political parties; Fianna Fáil fielded no women candidates in 28 constituencies and Fine Gael had no women standing in 30 constituencies. In five constituencies out of 43, no women candidates stood, even as Independents.
Having more women in politics could bring about a change in the sort of policies adopted, and in the political priorities of legislators - as evidenced by the experience in Rwanda, for instance, since more and more women have entered political life there in the last decade.
For all these reasons, organisations like the National Women's Council have been campaigning for many years for the adoption of measures to increase the numbers of women entering politics.
In April 2009, I got the agreement of the Joint Oireachtas Justice Committee, of which I am a member, to establish a sub-committee on women's participation in politics. As rapporteur to the sub-committee, I drafted a report which was adopted by it with unanimous cross-party support. The report was launched on November 5th, 2009, and was debated in the Seanad in April and May of this year. The majority of speakers from all parties were supportive of the findings and recommendations of the report.

So what were our key findings? First, we examined the challenges facing women on entry into politics, and suggested that these can be summarised under five headings (the "five C's"):

• childcare;
• cash;
• confidence;
• culture; and
• candidate selection procedures.

Under "childcare", we found that the "long hours" culture in politics is a factor which discourages women from being more politically active. We recommended therefore that, for example, changes to political party processes and council and Oireachtas sitting times are necessary to ensure that childcare and other family responsibilities can be accommodated, both for men and women in politics.

Under the "cash" heading, we found lack of resources to be another major factor inhibiting women in politics, particularly as, in Ireland, women earn on average 22 per cent less than their male counterparts. We recommended, among other things, the establishment of a national fundraising campaign to finance women's electoral campaigns and the voluntary provision of additional funds by parties to support women candidates.

Under "confidence" - women tend to lack sufficient self-belief to participate actively in political life, and to put themselves forward for selection in political parties. So we recommended that parties be encouraged to introduce recruitment drives aimed at women, seeking to identify and "head-hunt" women in local areas.

Under the "culture" heading, we found that the "overall masculine image of politics", remains as a powerful barrier for women's increased participation. We recommended that specific steps be taken, in particular through the education system, to encourage more women into politics through education programmes, and the creation of a national data bank of potential women candidates, on a constituency-by-constituency basis.

Finally, the issue of candidate selection procedures within political parties has been identified in research internationally as the single most important obstacle to women's political participation. This is the most controversial area, and this is where the question of quotas arises.

The question is how best to reform these procedures to achieve increased numbers of women in parliament. We reviewed the different models for reform in various countries and found that legislative electoral quotas, as experienced in Spain and Belgium, would be effective in the Irish political system. Thus, we recommended that candidate quota legislation be adopted, 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. Such legislation should be introduced on a temporary basis only, to ensure that when targets are met, the law will lapse.Clearly, such legislation would require support from all the political parties to ensure that it would be effective. But support is growing. The National Women's Council has endorsed such a law - and just last year, Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore introduced a model for such legislation. The adoption of a statutory quota for candidate selection is Labour Party policy.

Unless effective positive action measures are adopted through legislation like the Labour Bill, Ireland will continue to languish at the bottom of the international league tables for women's representation. Our democracy will remain "unfinished".
The evidence in support of a gender quota for candidate selection is clear - no matter what some individual women TDs may think.
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Ivana Bacik is a Labour Party Senator for Dublin University