The women of Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats have behaved "like mini-Margaret Thatchers" in their silence on the war in Iraq, the Green Party MEP, Ms Patricia McKenna, has said.
"The women of those parties have got off the hook on the war, sitting there like mini-Margaret Thatchers.
"I'm talking about women like Liz O'Donnell, who has always been so outspoken on humanitarian aid. And there are women in there with young children, like Mary Couglan . I just don't understand how they cannot put themselves in the position of the women of Iraq and speak out against what is happening."
During her visit to Iraq, she said, she saw one woman in a Baghdad hospital holding her eight-month-old daughter, Fatima, "who was just a skeleton, and she was just sitting there, waiting for her daughter to die".
Ms McKenna, who visited Iraq in February, was speaking in advance of a women's protest outside the Dáil tomorrow evening. Women are invited to attend the "noisy" protest at 7.30 p.m. tomorrow and to bring pots and pans, spoons and pan lids.
Ms Kristina McElroy of the Green Party and a member of the steering committee of the Irish Anti-War Movement explained the pots were "to make noise and make the TDs listen".
"If there is enough noise on Wednesday evening maybe the FF/PD TDs might be able to imagine how hard it must be for Iraqi parents putting their children to bed while bombs rain down," she said.
The protest is being organised by a cross-section of individual women including trade unionists, members of Residents Against Racism, of the Labour and Green Parties and of the three main anti-war groups.
Asked whether she thought there would be any trouble, as there was at last week's protest when Gardai had to forcibly move people from the street outside Leinster House, Ms McElroy said she did not.
Ms Liz McManus TD, Ms Jan O'Sullivan TD and Ms Breda Moynihan TD, all of the Labour Party, said they hoped to attend.
