Greens Lay Down Gender Challenge to Irish Political System

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday March 07, 2003 13:49 by Graham Caswell - Green Party caswell at indigo dot ie

Press Release

The Green Party has laid down a challenge to the Government and all other political parties to come together and re-establish the Oireachtas Women’s Affairs Committee which would have a specific responsibility to bring forward legislation to ensure a more equal representation of women in public life.

Opening the press conference, Green Party spokesperson on Women's Affairs Bronwen Maher, said that “in the European Parliament, 30% of members elected are female, compared with 13% elected to the Dáil”. “This inequality is not due to differing values of equality and social justice across Europe but to conscious efforts made to promote the position of women in politics. France, Denmark, Sweden and Belgium have introduced laws and gender quotas to ensure political parties are obliged to run a certain quota of female candidates, and have successfully boosted the numbers of women in parliament. Our government should recognise the success of these approaches and commit itself to similar methods. Women’s representation in the Dáil is a poor 13%, in the Seanad it is 17% and at Local Authority level it is a mere 15 %. These figures are some of the lowest in Europe.”

Ms. Maher said that “Last week at our Annual Convention in Ennis we passed a motion calling for legislative changes to ensure that more women are engaged in the political process”. “The motion, which was supported by a large majority of delegates called for the following:

1 To make 50% of funding for political parties dependent on maintaining a 40:60 gender balance among candidates selected for general and local elections, in order to achieve equal representation of women and men;

2 To re-establish an Oireachtas committee dedicated solely to women’s affairs;

3 To Change Dáil working practices to a system of shorter daily Dáil sittings with longer parliamentary sessions;

4 To make gender balance on State boards a statutory requirement and to

5 Resource and support the women’s community sector to facilitate greater participation by women in national and local politics.”

Cllr. Deirdre de Burca said that the “Ireland ranks 59th out of 120 nations in the world when it comes to women’s parliamentary representation, this is on a par with the average for sub-Saharan Africa. To have a fair and just society women have to be elected to all decision-making positions in order to be part of the crucial decisions that will affect their lives. As we all know there is no shortage of capable women ready to take up these responsibilities. All that is needed is the political will to start the change.”

Ms. de Burca said that research has shown that at least 30% representation of one or other gender is required to generate a culture of change, not only in who takes the decisions, but also in the agendas under discussion. “The Green Party is committed to achieving a 50 / 50 gender balance among local councillors elected in 2004. To aim towards this 50 / 50 gender balance the Greens are putting in place dedicated supports and programmes for our women candidates. For example, our Regional Development Officers have gender balance as one of the key criteria in their country-wide development programme.”

Kristina McElroy, Green Party delegate to the National Women’s of Ireland, said that an analysis of nominations to State boards and bodies carried out by the National Women’s Council revealed that the boards remain biased in favour of men. “Successive Ministers have failed to follow agreed guidelines on gender balance on State boards. Only three boards – the Equality Authority, the Combat Poverty Agency and the Legal Aid Board have more women than men while the RTE Authority and the Irish Blood Transfusions Service have achieved complete gender balance. The Green Party are calling on the Government to introduced legislation to make gender balance on State Boards a statutory requirement.”

"The Green Party believes that any organisation which nominates members to local development boards should initiate a programme of structural reform to achieve gender balance within each level of their decision making structures.”