NATIONAL WOMEN’S COUNCIL WANTS GENDER QUOTAS IN LOCAL ELECTIONS

THE director of the National Women’s Council of Ireland has called for gender quotas in council elections.

The NWCI’s Orla O’Connor also told the Irish Daily Mail there was a need to see ‘a commitment to introduce gender quotas for local elections’.

‘We would like to see a commitment to gender quotas on a local level; this is the building block for Dáil candidates,’ she said.

The country’s main political parties have said they are committed to gender equality in cabinet and across the top tiers of government. However, intriguingly, an Irish Mail on Sunday/Ireland Thinks poll has revealed the public are less enthusiastic than politicians about gender quotas.

It was revealed that just 31% of voters support a 50% gender quota in cabinet, with 58% opposing the concept. However, this has not deterred politicians from supporting the concept of gender equality, with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar complaining in the wake of his first cabinet reshuffle that he did not have a sufficiently deep pool of women to meet a 50-50 gender split in cabinet.

But women’s organisations have warned that women need to secure equality in the council chamber as a key step to equality at the cabinet table.

Under current legislation, when it comes to Dáil elections, 40% of candidates for Ireland’s political parties will have to be female by 2023.

This poses serious challenges for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael who, at 31% and 30.5% respectively, barely meet the current 30% quota. Sinn Féin at 33% and Labour at 32% also struggled.

Significantly, a NWCI report on the 2019 local elections, titled ‘Women Beyond the Dáil’, indicates that parties are struggling even more when it comes to securing female candidates for local government.

Council seats are a key building block for a run for the Dáil, but there is no gender quota for local elections.

Poses serious challenges