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At a fascinating debate in Dail Eireann on Friday 21 January, called “The Dail of Tomorrow”, Mairead McGuinness MEP called for the introduction of gender quotas as a way to “kick-start Ireland into the 21st century of political representation”

Ms McGuinness was speaking as part of a panel discussion on female political representation that also included Senator Ivana Bacik, Margaret Conlon TD, and chaired by former TD Katharine Bulbulia.  Ireland currently ranks joint 85th (with Cameroon) of 134 countries in the World calssification list compiled by the InterParliamentary Union.

All of the speakers agreed that without direct and immediate intervention that Ireland will continue to languish at the bottom of international league tables of women in politics.

‘Let us risk legislation on gender balance, said Ms McGuinness. “Let us set specific targets over a decent timeframe to let the political system adjust. And at that point the legislation should no longer be needed, as has happened in Denmark.’

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The Oireachtas has a library & research service.  It provides TDs & Senators with a general summary of developments – developments members need to know about in order to do their job (their “Parliamentary duties“).

“Spotlight” is published by the Oireachtas Library & Research Service.

In Issue No 6  November 2010, “Gender balance in EU Parliaments – Insights for Ireland” is useful.  If you want a good brief on this topic  – click this link…

This is the summary…

“This Spotlight focuses on the experiences of European Union national parliaments in implementing special measures, especially gender quotas, which aim to improve the gender composition of those legislatures. A handful of these parliaments have achieved a more balanced participation by both genders while others have made progress towards that target.

Although quota systems can improve the gender balance amongst candidates, if they are to succeed in getting more women elected they need to be applied in a way that attends to the intricacies of the electoral system.

Political parties also play a key role in balancing gender representation in parliament since they nominate candidates for elections.”

Maybe it’s time we all know more about what’s happening to bring about better representation in other EU countries – eh?