The Council of Europe has suspended the voting rights of the entire Irish delegation to its Parliamentary Assembly because Ireland's delegates are all men.
The council agreed last September that each national delegation should include at least one woman, an instruction that all countries obeyed, except Ireland and Malta.
The council wrote to all national delegations last November, reminding them that their team for 2004 must include members of both sexes. However, the Government Chief Whip, Ms Mary Hanafin, told the Dáil last Thursday that the all-male delegation, in place since the last general election, had been renominated.
Ireland's delegates are Fianna Fáil's Mr Noel Davern and Mr G.V. Wright, Fine Gael's Mr Jim O'Keeffe, Labour's Mr Brendan Howlin, and deputies Mr Brendan Daly and Mr Paschal Mooney ( Fianna Fáil), Mr Jim Higgins (Fine Gael) and Mr Tony Gregory (Ind).
The delegation will not be allowed to vote in the council's Parliamentary Assembly until its composition is changed to include a woman.
Mr O'Keeffe said: "It's somewhat embarrassing. To be honest, we got caught on the hop."
The Council of Europe has 45 member-states. Mr O'Keeffe said part of the Irish problem "is that we don't really have a huge surplus of women in parliament. We're fairly short in numbers. It's difficult enough to get women involved in active politics."
The Assembly meets in Strasbourg four times a year but committees meet more regularly, often in eastern Europe. "The notion of going off on your own to these meetings for a woman would be quite unattractive," Mr O'Keeffe said. He was confident that the Irish delegation will include a woman in time for the next Parliamentary Assembly in April.
He showed no willingness, however, to give up his own seat to a lady. "I suppose the onus would lie with the largest party. I'd be quite prepared to back a Fianna Fáil woman."