Tag Archives: Nicola Byrne

We need more women to participate in politics – politics with a big P

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Last Sunday, on the History Show on Radio One , I learnt something about the apparent absence of women from the foundation of the State.
It seems that Cumann na mBan were very anti Treaty, as it was not what they had wanted from the Rising. They then withdrew and perhaps that is part of the reason why so few women are part of the political process to this day?

We need to be in there making the arguments for change to the political system. As Nicola Byrne points out, our political system is there to suit men, but it is very hard to change it from the outside.

Minister Kathleen Lynch is hosting a major conference on Women in Politics on the Friday 20th January 2012 in Dublin Castle. I would encourage anyone who can spare the time to go.

Also best of luck to the 5050 group in the North West on their meeting tomorrow night.

Nicola Byrne, CEO 11890, speaks her mind…

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Discussing a recent ESRI report on NewstalkFM radio on 13 December, Nicola Byrne, founder & CEO of 11890 had this exchange with Jonathan Healy

Jonathan: … Funny you mention politics, because that’s the one area where there has been absolutely no change. We seem to have had very few new female politicians coming through. There have been some, and some of them have gone on, but, if you look at the Cabinet, it’s mostly an “old boys” affair.

Nicola: Well we have seen a lot of changes.  I know we have only 14% women I think currently in the Dail, and I have one or two of them as friends, but the difficulty there is that the system in the Dail hasn’t changed. We haven’t had enough power & influence, and it’s been left deliberately that way, that it isn’t family-friendly.

The Dail goes on until 10 o’clock at night sometimes. If you’re a young mother, you can’t participate. We’ve lost one or two TDs to the fact that two working TDs when they got married, she had to cut her job because she just couldn’t put the hours in. So we haven’t built the system for equality.  We’ve actually just built the system to suit whoever was in power at the time.  ‘He who has the power is the king-maker’.  And so the Dail has remained a traditional male bastion for that reason.  It’s not some great mystery why it hasn’t happened.  The boys just suited themselves, and nobody stopped them.

Jonathan (laughing): I think they do that across the board in relation to gender issues…