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By Claire McGing (Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) scholar, NUI Maynooth)

On behalf of Claiming our Future (http://www.claimingourfuture.ie/)
 
The same figures are thrown around again and again. Women have held only 5% of Dáil seats since the foundation of the state. 23 women sat in the 30th Dáil, amounting to a figure of 13.8% and placed us in a global position of 84th in terms of female parliamentary representation, alongside Cameroon (IPU, 2011). At the current rate of (or lack of) progress, it will take approximately 370 years before we achieve a 50:50 gender balance in parliament. We’ve heard it all before.
 
Some newer figures that you might not have heard of: only 15.2% of candidates (a pathetic 86 out of 566) running this Friday are female. While numerically this is an increase of 4 on the 2007 figure, it actually represents a percentage decrease of -2.2%. Percentage wise, there are fewer women running in 2011 than there was in the last four general elections. While all constituencies have at least 5 male candidates, voters in four constituencies will have no women on their ballot papers at all. The average number of male candidates per constituency is 11. For women it is only 2. Looking at the parties themselves, 14.7% of Fianna Fáil candidates are female (+1.6% from 2007), with a figure of 15.4% emerging for Fine Gael candidates (-1.1%). Labour is running 26.5% women (+4.5%), the Greens 18.6% (-6.4%) and Sinn Féin 19.5% (-4.9%). There are no women running for any of these parties in nine constituencies (21% of total). In the Independents/Others category, women make up 10.6% of candidates (-2.2%).
 
We are well aware as to why female political participation is so low because we have had no shortage of perfectly adequate reports published on it, along with a growing body of academic research. The ‘five C’s’ or challenges that women face in their pursuit for political office (as originally noted by the Oireachtas sub-committee on Women’s Participation in Politics, 2009) have been discussed at length. Childcare responsibilities are still disproportionably placed on Irish women. They have less cash than men. They are less confident about seeking a nomination to run because they lack visible role models and because they feel alienated by the highly masculine culture of politics. Women often find it more difficult to come through the candidate selection process as a result of these other challenges. These are facts and backed up by realms of research, in both an Irish and international setting.
 
Given the depressing lack of women being put forward yet again, how are the various political parties proposing to achieve a better balance between the genders in future elections? Encouragingly, all the main political parties have set out some kind of proposal in their manifestos and/or political reform documents as to how they would deal with the issue. We are at least seeing evidence of a process of equality rhetoric – a public acceptance that the lack of women in decision-making is a problem that needs to be addressed (Lovenduski, 2005).
 
While Labour, the Greens and Sinn Féin are all proposing mandatory electoral gender quotas which would oblige parties to put forward a certain percentage of female candidates (both Labour and the Greens tie this requirement to public funding), Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are much vaguer in their solutions. In conjunction with the use of a mixed-member proportional electoral system, Fianna Fáil would introduce measures to “favour gender balance within the national list”. What does this entail? Although unclear, their proposal most likely relates to the use of a ‘placement mandate’ provision. These are provisions requiring that a certain percentage of women are placed in certain positions on a party list. For example, every second candidate might be a woman. The party almost certain to lead the next government, Fine Gael, are proposing to give the issue to a Citizen’s Assembly, “to make recommendations as to how the number of women in politics can be increased”.
 
We need strong action now if we want to see a better gender balance in the future. While other democracies introduce reform measures to better facilitate the participation of women, Ireland is still thinking and talking about it. Claiming our Future are calling on the parties which form the new Government to include in their Programme for Government a commitment to increase the proportion of women in politics. This should, at a minimum, include new legislation so that full public funding under the Electoral Acts is only available to parties which select no more than two-thirds of their candidates from one gender.
 
Claiming our Future have set up an online petition. Be sure to sign it if you feel strongly about this and want to see a ballot paper that better reflects society in the 2016 general election.