OPINION:A special lunch will honour the women elected to the Dáil and Seanad since 1918 , writes Ivana Bacik.
THIS YEAR, Sunday, December 14th, 2008, will mark the 90th anniversary of the 1918 general election; the date when women first had the vote in Ireland, and in which Constance Markievicz, the first woman MP/TD, was elected.
To commemorate the historic 1918 election, I thought it would be appropriate to honour the women who have been elected to the Dáil and Seanad in the years since 1918 by inviting all living former women members to attend a lunch in Leinster House. A great deal of work went into locating former women members, but I was delighted at the enthusiastic response to my invitation.
Out of 52 living former women members, about 40 will be present on the day. These women include former Clann na Poblachta TD Kathleen O'Connor (now Fitzgerald), who won her Kerry North seat in a 1956 byelection; former TD Eileen Lemass, the daughter-in-law of Seán Lemass, who was first elected in 1977; and former minister Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, who became in 1979 the first woman appointed to the cabinet since Constance Markievicz.
Given the very positive response, I thought it would be good to mark the historic nature of the celebration in a more formal way, by organising a photograph and video of all the former women members of the Oireachtas, along with the 35 current women TDs and Senators, taking up their seats in the Dáil chamber for the reading of a speech by Constance Markievicz - thereby filling half the chamber.
The purpose of this photographic event will be to illustrate in a visual and very striking way the numbers of women who have been elected or appointed to the Oireachtas over the years. Although nothing similar has been done in Ireland before, this exercise was carried out in the Portuguese "parity parliament" day in 1994. The photograph of women politicians filling half of the Portuguese parliamentary chamber achieved a widespread impact, and helped greatly to increase awareness about low levels of women's political participation.
When I approached Ceann Comhairle John O'Donoghue with this idea, he very kindly gave his permission for the use of the Dáil chamber. With his support, and that of the very helpful Oireachtas staff, the Dáil chamber will be half-filled with women politicians for the first time, at lunchtime on Tuesday, December 9th.
I hope that this event will serve both as a celebration of the many remarkable women who have been TDs and Senators over the past 90 years; and as a reminder of the low levels of women's participation in Irish political life.
Since Constance Markievicz was first elected, women's share of Dáil seats has risen overall, from 1 per cent to today's figure of around 13 per cent. But in recent elections, the increase has slowed or reversed. Currently, there are only 22 women out of a total of 166 TDs in the Dáil (13.3 per cent). The figure is slightly better for the Seanad, with 13 women out of 60 Senators (21.7 per cent).
Ireland's performance is very poor internationally, ranking in joint 87th position with Barbados and Jamaica, out of 188 countries on the Inter-Parliamentary Union database (www.ipu.org). Even Afghanistan has a higher proportion of women in parliament at 27.7 per cent.
The poor levels of women's representation are particularly clear when the full figures are examined. Over the 90 years since the 1918 election, women have won only 219 of the total of 4,452 Dáil seats filled (4.9 per cent). Out of a total of 1,620 Seanad seats filled, only 151 have been taken by women (9.3 per cent).
There are multiple causes for women's under-representation, but a large part of the problem is the difficulty in becoming selected as political party candidates. Irish culture is informed by traditional gender stereotypes, and this is also true of the culture within political parties.
Research has indicated that women tend to be involved in non-party organisations, like community groups and single-issue campaigns, rather than being engaged by formal political party structures. Other factors also contribute; women have less access to resources than men, are more likely to have childcare responsibilities, and are less likely to have the confidence to put themselves forward for selection.
It is incumbent on political parties to encourage more women to participate and to run for election. The difficulties women face may be addressed through taking opportunities to promote more women; through providing supports such as formal mentoring of potential women candidates; and through setting realistic targets for the advancement of women within the political process.
As we prepare to celebrate the historic election of Constance Markievicz by honouring the many women who have entered the Oireachtas over the past 90 years, we might well reflect on the need to encourage more women to enter political life - so that some day our parliamentary chamber may be filled with equal numbers of women and men in a true "parity democracy".
• Ivana Bacik is an Independent Senator for Dublin University