Madam, – The Government’s intention to link public funding of political parties with gender quotas may have unintended consequences.
Not all candidates are linked to parties. Of the record number (250-plus) of independent Dáil candidates who offered themselves at the recent general election, only a handful were female. Furthermore in the TCD and NUI Senate constituencies the large panels of candidates contained very few females even though females form the majority of graduates from both universities in recent decades.
This evidence suggests that in order to meet the Government’s female quotas, 30 per cent and later 40 per cent of candidates, political parties may have to beat the bushes to produce the token list of females to earn the funding. This may discredit female candidates, including talented female politicians. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – If the proposed quota had been “100 per cent”, would it not appear that my constitutional right to vote for a chosen candidate was being interfered with? In what way might a 100 per cent quota be an interference with my constitutional rights, and an arbitrary 30 per cent quota no such interference? Should this proposal survive a court challenge, I suggest that independent candidates of merit, both male and female, will be the beneficiaries. – Yours, etc,