Petition Campaign for More Women in the Dáil
If you have noticed how few women candidates are calling to your door, it is because this time fewer than 1 in 6 of candidates are women – in 4 constituencies there are no women candidates running at all! The Dáil that is formed after the election is unlikely to contain many more women than the last one and we already had one of the worst records in the world for women’s participation in politics.
Of course, it is already too late to do anything about the candidates for February’s election. But if we want to be in time to change this blatant inequality for the next election, we need to start right now.
As part of our programme for political reform, Claiming our Future, is organising an on-line petition calling on the parties that form the new Government to include measures which will ensure that political parties put a more balanced and equal selection of candidates in front of the people in future elections. We need your help to put the pressure on – please sign your name on our website at www.claimingourfuture.ie and tell the next government that equality matters. Tell your friends and family too – forward this email on to them and ask them to sign, our first target is get 4,000 signatures by the end of this week, so please pass it on!
Best Regards
all at Claiming Our Future
Gender is a good place to begin… but it doesn’t end there
In seeking a truly representative democracy, the 5050 Group has focused on gender as it is one of the basic organising principles of Irish society (as elsewhere). The rationale for doing so is clear. The 30th Dáil is 86% male. This imbalance of representation places Ireland 23rd out of the EU 27 Members States for female representation in parliament. Only Cyprus, Romania, Hungary and Malta are below us in this league table. (The 31st Dáil will have even less female political representation).
The Group is alert, however, to the reality of multiple inequalities (for example, gender, class, ‘race’/ethnicity, sexuality, disability and so forth), which cut across both men and women’s lives, affecting their life chances. A truly representative democracy should reflect this complex tapestry. The Oireachtas does not. For example, there is an absence of both working class men and women as elected representatives. There is a similar absence of men and women from the travelling as well as other minority groups. This reality is wholly unacceptable in a representative democracy like Ireland.
In seeking gender justice in the electoral context, the 5050 Group undertakes to promote a wider understanding of equality. This is our firm commitment. Furthermore, the international research demonstrates that an initial focus on Gender justice opens up wider debates on multiple inequalities and their lived impact. Quite simply, the 5050 Group believes that Gender parity in Irish political life is an excellent place to start from but it certainly doesn’t end there
Margaret
As the 50 50 group is pushing for Equal Political Representation in Ireland by 2020 will you be pushing for travellers, disabled and ethnic minorities to be represented in politics? Or will you discriminate just like the government you are challenging?