Women's Participation in Politics: Statements

Women's Participation in Politics: Statements.

Senator Ivana Bacik: I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Mary White, and welcome, in particular, her personal interest in this matter. I also welcome to the Gallery representatives of very many groups that have had a long-standing interest in this area, in particular, the National Women's Council, the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, the Irishwomen Lawyers Association, women from Trinity College gender studies department and UCD women graduates. It is great to see there is so much interest in this issue. A former Minister, Niamh Bhreathnach, is present and was very helpful to us in the committee mentioned by others.

I am very proud to be here for this debate, which I have been calling for since being elected in 2007. I have had a long-standing interest and passion in trying to increase the numbers of women entering politics and this debate is taking place because of a couple of initiatives I took. These initiatives were brought to me by representatives from Labour women, in particular from the National Women's Council of Ireland. I acknowledge that.

We are celebrating 94 years since the Easter Rising but in December 2008, my friend, Sinéad Ní Chúlacháin, who is in the Gallery, mentioned that it was the 90th anniversary of the election of Constance Markievicz, of whom Senator Mooney has already spoken. To commemorate that, we looked at a model which had been used in Portugal some years previously. In an attempt to break down the cultural barrier of male stereotyping, a day was created in the parliament when it was half-filled with women representatives to show what parity democracy would look like. Taking that model, I invited all former and sitting women Members of the Oireachtas to take part and the then Ceann Comhairle, Deputy John O'Donoghue, very generously gave us the use of the Dáil Chamber.

We had a very visually impressive day where the Chamber was half-filled with approximately 80 former and sitting Deputies and Senators. The Chamber has never looked so colourful and former Senator Catherine McGuinness read a speech from Constance Markievicz in which she exhorted the women of Ireland to hitch up their skirts, wear stout boots and carry a revolver to get on in public life. Perhaps some of that advice is still relevant.

That was a very important day and I am grateful to Senator Norris, who said that picture should be used in education programmes. I think the Department of Education and Science has used it and I know the Houses of the Oireachtas communications unit has used the picture in some of its materials. To have the picture of the Dáil Chamber half full of women elected to the Dáil and Seanad displayed somewhere in Leinster House would also help in a small way. It would help to break down cultural barriers to women's participation.

Following from that initiative, last year on the Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights I initiated the establishment of a sub-committee dealing with women's participation in politics. I acknowledge the help and support of others, especially Senator McDonald who served on the sub-committee with me and other members. Professor Yvonne Galligan, Ms Niamh Bhreathnach, Ms Gemma Hussey and Ms Liz O'Donnell all gave of their expertise. Ms Aoife O'Driscoll, my parliamentary assistant, helped me write the report as I was the rapporteur to the committee. I also acknowledge the work of Senator Mooney and Ms Maedhbh McNamara on Women in Parliament, as their book gave us a great deal of invaluable information.

The report was published last November and received cross-party support. The findings have been referred to by everybody in the House, including the Minister of State. I do not want to reiterate them and I hope the report is very readable and clear. It is not intended to be a weighty tome. It is meant to be a very practical plan of action.

Some of the key findings include the fact that Ireland's record is not only extremely poor in comparison with other countries but has disimproved in terms of women's participation in politics. In 1990, when Mary Robinson was elected as our first woman President, we were in 37th position in the Inter-Parliamentary Union rankings in terms of women's representation in the lower or single house of national parliaments. By November last year, when the report was published, we had fallen to 84th position, with 23 women Deputies from 166, or 13.8%. We were ranked equally with Djibouti in east Africa at the time. I looked at the statistics again last night and we have fallen to 85th position, ranked equally with Cameroon.

It is not that the number of women in our Parliament has disimproved — the Dáil representation has never exceeded 14% and 13.8% is about our highest point — but that other countries have improved since 1990, moving up the rankings. In particular, European countries where opportunity quotas of the type we recommend have been adopted have seen a difference. We are well below the world and European average and the internationally recommended figure of 30%. Perhaps the worst finding is that we have disimproved.

Negative consequences have included the restriction on voter choice that Senator Fitzgerald mentioned and that we discussed in the report. Professor Yvonne Galligan told us that at least 60% of constituencies in Ireland in 2007 had no women candidates from either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael. Others have said that women do not vote for women, which is a bit of an apocryphal myth because if a woman wants to vote for Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael, she cannot in the majority of constituencies. Fianna Fáil fielded no women candidates in 28 from 43 constituencies and Fine Gael presented no women in 30 from 43 constituencies. In five constituencies, there were no women candidates at all, so voters could not support a woman no matter how much they wanted to.

Local elections last year were no better. Only 16% of councillors elected last year were women and that figure fell from previous local elections when a magnificent 17% was reached. Voter choice is restricted and internationally we have obligations to adopt positive action measures to change the position. We need to address this difficulty as a matter of urgency.

Others have spoken about the five Cs identified in all the international literature discussed in the report. These are difficulties with child care, cash, confidence, culture and candidate selection procedures. On child care, others have spoken about the necessary changes. Paid paternity leave is required to change the cultural view that child care is solely a matter for women. I support the Oireachtas crèche personally as somebody who has had a baby since my election. I have found the crèche very useful as I could leave the baby there and run here to make a speech, returning later to breastfeed the baby if necessary. It was very important for me as a new mother to have a crèche available on site. I defend that facility.

Senator McDonald has had a different experience and this is notable for Deputies and Senators outside Dublin as opposed to those from the city. We must review our rules and sitting times within the Oireachtas to ensure they are family friendly both for rural and urban representatives.

On the cash issue we recommended State funding for women candidates to be ear-marked until a certain target was reached, with political parties making additional funds available. On the confidence issue we recommended that political parties take a lead in initiating mentoring and leadership training programmes. As Senator McDonald stated, culture is a very important and yet intangible barrier for women. The pub and pint-buying patriarchal traditionalist culture of Irish politics is echoed and reflected in every political party. We must address it through a variety of routes

In the education system young women should be given female role models and there should be an advertising campaign similar to that initiated in Iceland in 1999. That had some very striking images, with a woman leader of a political party shaving in a mirror and a prominent male politician trying on high heels. These pictures were displayed publicly as part of an advertising campaign to try to challenge traditional stereotypes of male politicians and what has been described as the overall masculine image of politics.

A national databank of potential women candidates was established in Norway to get over the problem of not enough women putting themselves forward. A national non-governmental organisation, such as the National Women's Council of Ireland, could administer that on a constituency by constituency basis.

I wish to speak on candidate selection procedures and the sort of quota model we recommended. The word “quota” sometimes conjures an image of reserved seats, with a quota of seats in a parliament for women. I stress that this is not what we recommended, although it is the model used in some countries, such as African countries like Rwanda which has achieved 56% representation in parliament by women. It is not a model we advocate, partly because there would be difficulty under European law. We are suggesting a much more limited form of quota, an opportunity quota rather than an outcome quota. An opportunity quota simply requires political parties to put forward a certain minimum number of candidates of each gender. As it is done in Belgium, no more than two thirds of candidates can be of one gender, thus putting a cap on the number of men a party may select. This does not restrict voter choice but would increase the number of women candidates available for election by voters.

Professor Galligan, in her evidence to the committee, spoke in a very practical way about how this could be done in Ireland where incumbent Deputies, Senators or councillors retire and vacancies arise. In 2007, 17 Deputies from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour indicated they were retiring and the vacancies were contested by 29 non-incumbent candidates of which six, or 20%, were women. She pointed this out as an example of where a gender balancing requirement would have increased the number of women running to replace incumbents without threatening any individual incumbent. She claims it would almost certainly have resulted in more women being elected.

A quota does not make any imposition on voters. It simply recognises the reality of the political parties as the gatekeepers of who will go forward to face the electorate. These gatekeepers must be subjected to certain rules in terms of the number of candidates they select.

An Cathaoirleach: The Senator has one minute remaining.

Senator Ivana Bacik: This legislation must be introduced as a matter of urgency. Experience elsewhere shows that, unless some quota is introduced, we will not change. The status quo has been stuck at 13%-14% of women's representation in the Dáil for a long time. The Seanad is better at 22%, 13 women out of 60, but the ranking on which we are being measured is done on the basis of the lower or single house of parliament.

The measures the committee proposed should apply not just to Dáil elections, but also to Seanad, local and European elections where our representation has fallen from 38% in the previous election to 25% in the last election. A system of financial penalties based on the French model should be imposed in the legislation. The legislation should have an in-built sunset clause whereby it would lapse once the targets were met.

As a concrete plan of action on foot of this report, I ask the Minister of State to propose a timeline for adopting the legislation. We know it has worked in other European countries, particularly Belgium and Spain where the rate of representation has increased from being more or less equal with ours in 1990 to being ranked 12th and 13th, respectively, in the world.

I will finish on Senator Fitzgerald's practical point. The preceding Minister of State, Deputy Moloney, committed to doing something similar. Will the current Minister of State, Deputy White, convene a meeting with the general secretaries of all political parties to put to them the report's recommendations, many of which are aimed at them, and ask them to revert to her within two or three months for a further meeting to determine what progress has been made? In addition to a timeline for the legislation and the review of the national women's strategy, I ask the Minister of State to take this issue up with the political parties as a matter of urgency. Otherwise, in the words of Liz O'Donnell before our committee, our democracy will remain unfinished and incomplete.