General election gender quotas should have sunset clause

Fine Gael TD for Dublin South, Olivia Mitchell, has suggested the introduction of a sunset clause for gender quotas which would see the quotas phased out after a pre-determined period of time. Deputy Mitchell was speaking during the second stage debate of the Electoral Amendment Political Funding Bill. Legislation introduced by the Government will ensure that 30% of general election candidates must be from either sex.

“I strongly believe that we need more women in national politics. The male-dominated nature of our Dáil representation means the quality of our legislation is the poorer, lacking that extra dimension and prism which strong female representation would provide.

“However, while I appreciate the motivation behind the gender quota legislation, I am not entirely comfortable with quotas. I am concerned whether or not the views of women who are artificially leveraged into Dáil Eireann can carry the same weight as those of someone who is elected solely on merit.

“For this reason, I believe we need to look at the phasing out of the gender quota system after two general elections or ten years by way of a sunset clause. It is only after this quota is taken away that we will ever know whether the experiment has had any lasting impact on the status of women.

“The real reason women are under-represented in the Dáil is the same reason women are under-represented at the top of all professions €”the fact that the prime career-building years are also the prime child-bearing years for women.

“We need to take a proper look at providing practical solutions for women who want to have children and a political career. The issue of childcare is obviously of paramount importance in this regard. Running our Parliament in ordinary office hours would also help greatly to encourage women to engage in political life.”