The Leader of the Labour Party has pledged to work towards achieving an even gender balance in his party's membership, where just a third of members are women.
Addressing the National Labour Women's Conference in Dublin at the weekend, Mr Pat Rabbitte said 2,024 of the party's 5,938 members were women. "That's almost exactly 34 per cent," he said. "We have a long way to go."
He said there had been an encouraging increase in membership since he was elected party leader and that a higher proportion of new members were women, but this was not nearly enough to address the imbalance.
He said he supported the aims of Labour women to encourage the participation of women in all party activities, including policy formation and the holding of positions within the party.
"When women constitute 50 per cent of the membership of the party, 50 per cent of the parliamentary Labour Party and, ultimately, 50 per cent of a Labour-led Cabinet, then we can begin to talk about full participation."