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The 50:50 Group welcomes the publication of gender quota legislation

On December 16, draft legislation on political party funding and candidate gender quotas was published by the Irish government.

The Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Bill, 2011 provides for a 30% gender quota for party candidates at the next election, rising to 40% seven years later. Non-compliant parties will risk financial penalties.

Edel Clancy, Chair of The 50:50 Group, welcoming the bill said:

‘We commend Minister Phil Hogan for including an electoral gender quota provision in the Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Bill 2011.  This development is extremely positive.  International research continually shows that candidate gender quotas are a successful contributor to increasing women’s political representation worldwide.  We warmly welcome the gender quota proposal as we believe it will contribute significantly to redressing the gender imbalance in Irish politics’.

The 50:50 Group has called for an extension of the gender quota to local elections. Local government is where politicians ‘cut their cloth’ –  gain the experience & profile that aids their candidature for Dáil election.

Currently, women account for only 17% of all County Councillors.  A key problem is that with so few numbers of women in local government, political parties oftentimes do not have ‘experienced’ and ‘qualified’ women politicians to select at Dáil elections.

It is vital that the legislative gender quota is extended to local government to ensure a constant supply of qualified and experienced women politicians available to contest at national elections’.

Echoing comments from other groups working in the area to promote gender balance in politics, Ms Clancy advised ‘this measure will finally break the glass ceiling of political representation for women in Ireland.  The Bill will require parties to give the voters a gender choice at election times.  The 30% quota provision is very attainable.

UCC academic & member of The 50:50 Group, Fiona Buckley, has calculated that at the 2011 election just one more female party candidate in 38 of the 43 constituencies would have delivered the 30% quota.”

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