Calls for new government to form a cabinet of at least 40% women

Sophie Collins

Calls are being made for more female representatives in Irish government to address the current gender imbalance in Irish politics

This comes as talks to form the next government continue this week after the Christmas break.

Fianna Fail and Fine Gael will likely enter into a coalition together once again, adding a number of Independent TDs to the final available seats.

In light of this, the topic of gender balance is leading the conversation online and spokesperson for Women for Election Ireland, Katie Deegan spoke of the just 25% of women currently in government.

“We were one of the leaders in Europe with the first ever [female] minister appointed, which was Countess Markievicz in 1919 – but it did take us until another 60 years to appoint Máire Geoghegan-Quinn in 1979,” she said.

“We have 25% women in our Dáil at the moment, we lag in the world’s rankings at 95th in the world for gender balance in national parliament – but we know that global research demonstrates that gender diverse leadership will improve our decision making.

“It strengthens our democracy, it strengthens governance outcomes, but it also enhances the trust in politics within the public.”

Deegan went on to say that this issue is being masked by the fact that there are a number of women currently in high profile and senior positions in Irish politics, in particular leading the media campaigning.

“We’ve actually never had any more than four women at one time in the 15-member cabinet in the history of the State,” she said.

“I suppose, one of the kind of problems that we have in Ireland is that the women that we do have hold very senior positions within their parties.

“We have three women party leaders, we’ve got women who hold very high-profile roles, and you know, a lot of women do very forefront media and campaigning and so on, so it almost masks the problem that we have a lack of women in our politics.”

She went on to say: “We had a record-breaking number of women in both of the local and general elections this year.

“Women did particularly well in that, they got a huge number of the first preferences – but what we’re seeing is we need more women [running] in winnable seats and not being kind of like, an additional candidate to a male incumbent.

“We know that incumbency is one of the huge barriers to women being successful in government.”

Ms Deegan said her organisation is calling on the next government to commit to gender equality by agreeing to have a minimum of 40% women in their cabinet.