Will the local elections on 23^rd May result in a better gender balance on Sligo County Council?  Currently, 19 men and 6 women have been serving on the Council for the past five years so there is much room for improvement in order to reach a better gender balance.

At a national level just 17% of seats in local government are occupied by women. This election sees a total of 2040 candidates contesting council seats, 1599 (78.4%) men and 441 (21.6%) women. While men continue to dominate the political arena, there is some increase in the figures in comparison to five years ago when 314 (17.2%) of the total number of candidates were women.

In Sligo between the two electoral areas nine  women are running as candidates – seven in the Sligo electoral area and two in the Ballymote/Tubbercurry area.  Four incumbents are standing again – Marcella McGarry (Labour),  Rosaleen O’Grady (Fianna Fail) and Independents, Margaret Gormley and Veronica Cawley.  Newcomers to the field are:  Sinead Maguire (Fine Gael) and four Independents Marie Casserly, Patricia Gardiner, Martina Butler and Mary Tuffy.

“One certain way to improve the number of women in Sligo County Council is for every voter to consider all the candidates carefully and to think about the lack of equality in our political process. Just over 50% of the population are women; that figure should be echoed in our political system, said Nóirin Clancy of 5050 North West.

Back row:  Patricia Gardiner (IND), Veronica Cawley (IND), Martina Butler (IND), Marcella McGarry (LAB), Sinead Maguire (FG) and Marie Casserley (IND); all from Sligo electoral area (only one missing is Rosaleen o’Grady FF)

in front:  Mary Tuffy (IND) and Margatet Gormley (IND) for Ballymote/Tubercurry electoral area