Parties will lose funding if they fail to fill gender quota

Published: Monday, May 23, 2011

Political parties are going to have to start choosing a lot more female candidates if they want to retain the current €14m a year subsidy from the taxpayer.

In what was described by one senior source as "a radical step", the Cabinet has approved a proposal to cut taxpayers' funding for political parties by 50 per cent if they fail to select a sufficient number of female candidates for national elections.

The abysmally low level of representation for women in national politics has been an ongoing source of embarrassment for the political system.

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