Statement from 5050 North West
Fianna Fáil’s selection convention in Manorhamilton on Friday night caused consternation with the selection of two Sligo based candidates, Mark McSharry and Eamonn Scanlon.
Given the boundary changes in the Sligo/Leitrim constituency, geography is the main concern. Achieving a gender balance on the ballot paper and giving voters a choice does not appear to be top of the Party’s agenda.
Yet Fianna Fáil are under pressure to run more female candidates, otherwise they will lose half their state funding. This is the implication if the Party doesn’t comply with gender quota legislation which means 30% of their candidates nationally must be women.
The 5050 North West Group expressed their disappointment that a female candidate was not chosen to contest in Sligo/Leitrim . Nóirín Clancy, 5050 Chairperson said:
‘Fianna Fáil produced a Gender Equality Action Plan; the Markeivicz Commission report was launched in January which outlined plans to support women who may be successful in seeking the nomination for the general election. So why aren’t we seeing any changes? It’s well known that candidate selection procedures pose a major barrier for women and this still appears to be the case, even when we have experienced women willing to stand’.
16 candidates have already been selected by Fianna Fáil to contest the next general election, but only one nominee so far is female. This is Senator Mary White who has been nominated to run in the Dublin Rathdown constituency. Councillor Norma Foley put her name forward for selection in Kerry earlier this month but lost out to a man, as did Councillor Sinead Guckian in Sligo/Leitrim on Friday.
The vast majority of women TDs elected since 1918 have come from urban-based constituencies. Of the 27 females TDs currently in the Dáil, three-quarters represent constituencies in Dublin or Leinster. Michelle Mulherin (Fine Gael) is the only female TD in the whole of Connacht and Heather Humphreys (FG) in the Republic’s Ulster counties. Political geographer at Maynooth University, Claire McGing, has calculated that 42 per cent of the Irish population currently have no female TDs, the vast majority outside of Leinster.
‘We are concerned that achieving the gender quota will be left up to urban constituencies. This is not good enough, change needs to happen in rural as well as urban areas . The Party needs to ‘walk the talk’ and implement the actions outlined in the Markievicz Commission report. The Countess, if she was alive today, would not be impressed with the Party’s poor record’ stated Nóirin Clancy.
5050 North West is part of the 5050 Group, a single issue national advocacy group campaigning for equal representation in Irish politics.