Madam, – The question Mary Minihan asked women TDs (Front Page, August 4th) “should political parties be required to adopt gender quotas in their candidate selection process?” was bound to get a negative reaction. It was unfortunately far too narrow. I do not think that any Irish person, man or woman, is happy with the backward situation in Ireland where the Dáil is 86 per cent male.
We rank in 84th position worldwide for the number of women in our national parliament, falling from an already weak 37th position in 1990. It is a poor and deficient democracy without the participation of women in numbers.
Your happy photograph from 2008 when Ivana Bacik brought together a gathering of nearly all current and former women Oireachtas members concealed a sorry truth that even with a very big turnout of women on that day, we filled only half of the Dáil chamber.
It concealed another sorry statistic – since the foundation of the State, there have been only 11 women Cabinet members.
Rather than limit ourselves to talk of quotas, with all the hackles that raises, it would be better if we looked towards enlightened countries which have used a variety of interventions by government and legislation to redress what they saw as a shameful and historic imbalance in their parliaments.
Some of these measures included quotas, others had financial or other sanctions for failure to act. But all such thinking includes one crucial element: where acceptable targets were reached, the exceptional measures lapsed.
Fine Gael floated an idea which got a dusty reception from within the party. I hope these skirmishes will not distract from pressing ahead with reform.
The ideal would be for the parties to raise their heads from narrow party advantage and work with women experts within Ireland as well as dedicated groups within the United Nations, the European Commission, our own National Women’s Strategy as well as an Oireachtas Committee report — all of which have well worked-out proposals for reform.
The preparatory work has been done. No need to long-finger it any more. Now it is time for action. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Surely the solution to the gender imbalance problem in the Dáil is to reduce the number of male TDs to parity with the current female number. To adjust for the added responsibilities of fewer members, we could make it a full-time job. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Susan McKay of the National Women’s Council (NWC), has criticised women TDs who oppose gender quotas (Home News, August 5th) and said that this opposition shows “a sad lack of solidarity with other women”.
It seems to me that the National Women’s Council believes that women TDs are to be dictated our opinion on this particular issue on the basis of our gender.
I choose to make up my own mind on this issue, and to respect the right of others to do the same. I oppose gender quotas because I believe they are an interference with democracy. In our general elections, candidates run for election, with no guarantees, no safe seats and no quotas.
The dialogue that occurs between voters and candidates is central to our electoral system of PR STV. That dialogue happens at party selection conventions too and should not be interfered with.
There are alternative policies to gender quotas that can be implemented by political parties to encourage more women to run for election. My party does not have a policy of gender quotas yet achieved 30 per cent women TDs at the last election.
The issue to be addressed if we are to see more women in the Dáil is the need for more women to join political parties. Women have increased their representation in other walks of life without the imposition of gender quotas. If we encourage more women to be active in political parties more women TDs will follow. – Yours, etc,