A woman's place is in the House

"I'M sick of them all. I'm voting for a woman." The speaker is a male bank manager who seems faintly shocked at himself. The only woman candidate available to him is Democratic Left. "Her policies do nothing for me," he admits, "but God - I just want an end to the tub thumping, pointscoring rubbish, double talk and sleaze. And women don't seem to get involved in that".

Ageing malcontent or a straw in the wind? Look across the water. A similar yearning for change not only swept away a deeply entrenched Tory government but nearly doubled the number of women in the House of Commons. Of the 22 strong new British Cabinet, a record five are women.

They're cock a hoop of course. The way they see it, there are at last enough women in the Westminster bear garden to challenge cultures that wreck family life. Many of the new intake are mothers demanding morning sessions and an end to midnight debates. The old gladiatorial style of debate may even give way to what one new woman MP described as "joined up thinking".

And pigs might fly.

But for all the fuss they still comprise just over 17 per cent of a parliament that has 659 members, a long way short of the "critical mass" (over a third) needed to boot the place into the 20th century. But it's still a good 3 per cent more than our own Republic can produce and who, but the most rabid misogynist, can look at those figures and not wince? So what's the problem? Is it that Irishwomen simply don't care? Hardly. This is the State, remember, that has a woman President (a liberal feminist), a woman leader of one of the main political parties and women deputy leaders in its two largest parties. Well, maybe it's that old chestnut, sexism, that keeps them out?

The male councillor who introduced the National Party's manifesto last week might be a classic example. In another era, his reference to the candidates as "these men" (including Nora Bennis, his indisputably female leader), and the media men and women as "gentlemen" might have had strong women passing the sick bag. Last week, it elicited no more than an amused snort. "Maybe Nora Bennis should get his eyes tested - or give him £100 a week to stay at home," hooted one woman candidate. They can afford to laugh at a dying species. Mary Robinson's all conquering progress has immunised them against such political dinosaurs.

Nor is sexism a problem in the Dail, by all accounts. Not of the overt kind anyway. There was the senior Fianna Fail figure who on hearing about the resignation of his party colleague, Maire GeogheganQuinn, crowed: "That's one less rip we'll have to deal with." But they don't usually get caught.

"Whatever sexism was there in the Chamber was killed off when Alan Dukes tried to use the handbag image on Maire Geoghegan Quinn," says Mairin Quill happily. "That's the day sexism died. He got his comeuppance from Maire Maybe women's political ability is in question then? Anyone harbouring the notion that the Dail is full of "token women" should seek out the likes of Mary O'Rourke, Mary Harney,

Maire Geoghegan Quinn, Nora Owen, Liz O'Donnell, Frances Fitzgerald or a dozen others and try saying that to their laces. So if it's not apathy, sexism or stupidity, what is it then? Could it be that women have no interest in political power? Who knows? The problem is that not only is the playing field not level, but because the men's team gets to make the rules, most women rule themselves out for selection.

There is the apprenticeship for a start. Straight away women are up against it. Up against inherited pockets of supporters that men have in the pub, the GAA, soccer, golf or rugby club. Up against the need to finance a car, a telephone, childcare, drink buying, sponsorships and raffle tickets, the cost of advertising "clinics" in the local newspapers (£300 a month for one woman).

Up against the fact that women, traditionally, are not financially independent; that even for working women, there is a 30 per cent hourly wage gap between men and women employed in industry. Up against the fact that getting elected is only the start of it. Mary Coughlan and Cecilia Keaveney from Donegal and Breeda Moynihan Cronin from Kerry - the three women who occupy the most rural, far flung constituencies of all - all describe a ridiculous merry go round that involves not just the three days a week in the Dail, with 15 hour days, and sittings till midnight to clear legislation, but branch meetings at every corner of the constituency, clinics at weekends, and meetings, openings and fundraisers every night of the week. "I think it's got worse in the past 20 years," says Breeda Moynihan Cronin, "because now everyone has an organisation."

"You're killed working," says Mary Coughlan, "running and racing to every dogfight. Sometimes, you're in Dublin and there's a funeral back home so you're driving up to Donegal in the middle of the night and back to Dublin the next day." These women routinely cover 800 to 1,000 miles a week. It's probably no coincidence that these three women are also childless. But that's about to change for Mary Coughlan, whose first baby is due in or around polling day. She has only a glimmer of what lies ahead. "My husband is based in Donegal so at least he'll be able to provide stability in the household. But we'll have to get a live in nanny. It's going to be difficult, but more difficult if we're in Government and extremely difficult if there's only a small margin - the pair situation will be catastrophic."

MEANWHILE, TDs who are already mothers in other farflung Kathleen Lynch from Cork and Theresa Ahearn from Tipperary - talk wistfully of their urban counterparts who can "nip off home" to help a child with homework, see another through exams or dole out the hugs and Calpol, to one who is sick. The alternative for most of them, midweek, is a lonely room with a television for company.

"For a man, it's second nature to drop into a bar, their social lives are set up," says Kathleen Lynch. "If we started hanging around bars, what would they say about us?"

The concept of a "family room", where visiting offspring could pass the time, was raised at one stage. "But when do TDs have time for families?" she asks. They accept that not much can be done about the weekly treks to the Dail. "But when you go home, it's back to a pile of work and meetings and clinics. You can't even compensate for having been away, even though you're back at base."

"We have no family life. None," says Breeda Moynihan Cronin. So, is this why women aren't flocking to the hustings - because the very institution that should lead by example runs a system that is utterly alien to family life and therefore to the vast majority of women? Gemma Hussey, a former Minister, has no doubts. "People say how wonderfully democratic the multi seat PR system is, but it is in fact inimical to any kind of family life." It's a system, she says, under which TDs are not just representing the people, but also working against other TDs, "which means they have to be at every dogfight at the crossroads, every single branch meeting all, over the constituency because if they're not there, you can be sure their rivals will be. The life of a TD is seven days a week and seven nights. And though the parties aren't saying it out loud, I know they are having great difficulty getting good new candidates of any sex because the life is so appalling. And in return for that life, what do you get? - Abuse."

The solution is obvious. If party leaders are sincere about a genuinely representative parliament, they must change the system. Or - as one woman suggested, only half jokingly - allocate a "wife to each woman TD. "The best asset most men in Leinster House have is a wife," says Senator Cathy Honan from Laois. "If they're single, they don't have the responsibility of children. If they're married, they will usually have a wife back in the constituency. Traditionally, women would have been very supportive of their husbands whatever their work - and traditionally, I don't think women have got that in return."

Many of these women were concerned not to be seen as "cry babies". This debate, they insist, is much larger than a "woman's issue". And so it is. It seems extraordinary that our political leaders who purport to be wracked with concern for the family can ignore the barbaric consequences of a system over which they themselves preside.

"Debate? They don't want to know," says Breeda Moynihan Cronin. The dearth of women in public life is keenly felt. Many people believe that the Hepatitis C tragedy, for example, would have been handled differently by a woman Minister.

"Men often see things from a different point of view," says Cathy Honan. "It was brought home to me - most forcibly when the Kilkenny incest case was being discussed in the Seanad when all I could hear were these men blaming the mother, because she hadn't left. I couldn't believe my ears. They had money in their pockets and cars under their backsides - what could they possibly know about a woman in her situation?

Breeda Moynihan Cronin points out that she works very closely with the local Rape Crisis Centre and sees many battered wives. "They come to me because I'm a woman, especially in rural areas where the doctor is a man, the priest is a man, the guard is a man. . . Meanwhile, it's worth noting that the two largest parties in the State have by far the lowest proportion of women TDs. Fianna Fail, the largest party, could muster only six women TDs out of 68 in the outgoing Dail. Those happy with the status quo might reflect on the words of defeated Tory MP Edwina Currie, as she surveyed the dramatically shrunken Conservative benches, filled with yesterday's grey suited men: "I hope the Conservatives learn from Labour. Otherwise, we will only have old men left voting for us."