Sir, – Róisín Lawless (November 28th) attempts to justify gender quotas by claiming the “candidate selection processes of political parties have been identified as posing a significant obstacle to the political participation of women (due to a prevailing masculine culture, perhaps?).”
This ignores the fact that the percentage of independent candidates who were female was an even smaller percentage (than those affiliated to a party) for the last election, suggesting it’s not the parties that are the reason for the low numbers. – Yours, etc,