Madam, – Senator Ivana Bacik proposes that political parties should be obliged to “impose a maximum limit on the proportion of candidates of any one gender selected to run in elections at local, national and European levels” in order to end the “masculine image of politics” (Home News and Breaking News, November 5th). A cursory analysis of the 2007 general election shows that any such imposition would be a gross distortion of the electoral process.
The electorate comprises 51 per cent women, yet only 23 female TDs were elected (14 per cent of the total). Ms Bacik’s report seems to suggest that this disparity is due to a lack of female candidates, but this is patently not the case.
A total of 58 female candidates were unsuccessful in 2007 – 21 of whom represented one of the three major parties, and 24 others represented the smaller political parties. A total of six sitting female TDs lost their seats. Why should these candidates be given preferential treatment over other (male) candidates who had more support among the electorate? And why should the political parties be forced to run more female candidates, when the electorate chose to reject such large numbers of the candidates they did select? Female voters comprise a majority of the electorate, and had they chosen to do so, there were a sufficient number of candidates to elect 81 women to the Dáil – yet this did not happen. This glaring fact is omitted from Senator Bacik’s report.
The gender inequality in Irish politics is not brought about by the lack of will among political parties to nominate female candidates, but by the seeming unwillingness of the Irish electorate (including a large majority of women voters) to vote for them.
Senator Bacik should devote the time and resources of the Oireachtas Committee on Justice to exploring the reasons for this fundamental problem, rather than wasting them on the politically correct window-dressing contained in her report. – Yours etc,