Government to introduce ridiculous gender quotas.

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

http://www.thejournal.ie/parties-to-be-told-run-more-women-or-lose-state-funding-144871-May2011/?voted=1

IRELAND'S POLITICAL PARTIES could soon see their State funding cut by up to 50 per cent if they do not provide a certain proportion of female candidates at future elections.

Environment minister Phil Hogan has confirmed he will soon bring legislation to cabinet that will force parties to ensure that at least 30 per cent of their candidate base are female – or see their central funding, a major source of income, depleted.

The minister told the Irish Times that the proposal was "a groundbreaking political opportunity for the country in terms of increasing particularly the participation rate of women in Irish politics".

"This is the carrot and the big stick approach. If you don't deliver you'll get your funding cut, and it's quite a serious penalty to be in breach of this particular proposal," he told Mary Minihan.

The confirmation follows reports to a similar extent from the Sunday Independent last week.

The news also comes as the Standards in Public Office Commission confirmed that the five largest political parties received a total of almost €13.5m in state funding in 2010 through party payments and Party Leaders' Allowances.

Fine Gael received the highest allocation under the Party Leaders' Allowance – taking up almost €3m of the €8m paid through those means – while Fianna Fáil, as the largest Oireachtas party at the time, took €2.3m of the €5.4m paid in party funding.

The total Party Leaders Allowance also includes payments to independent TDs and Senators in lieu of the support they would ordinarily receive from parties.

Independent TDs earn €41,152 in allowances per year, while independent Senators are paid €23,383 per annum. Last year independent parliamentarians receive €304,905 last year – a sum that will be dwarfed in 2011 given the larger numbers of independent TDs.




Very bad idea IMO, seriously hope this is not implemented. It is sexist, and promotes quantity over quality. Women need to show a greater interest at grass roots levels in putting themselves forward. Outside of political parties, highly interested and qualified women should put themselves forward as independents or make themselves available to political parties.

[Rossfan]

Next thing there will be 2 Elections , 1 for men for 83 seats and another for women to fill the other 83.
Anyway most women have too much common sense and cop on to be involved in Politics.

[Rois]

I think you are definitely underestimating the level of male sexism (whether direct or implied) that still exists in traditionally male-dominated spheres, which I'm sure local political parties are among.

I agree that quality shouldn't be compromised but I'm still convinced that there is base preference for men at higher levels which can be incredibly frustrating.  Women often have to work twice as hard to get on the same level.  I'm not some mad feminist but I am a female in a male-dominated world and the more I try to get up the ladder, the more my eyes are opened to how much I have to do to set myself apart from the men. 

Rant over (it's promotions time in my workplace by the way, hence my strong feelings!)

[mylestheslasher]

I believe if a female candidate is good enough, works hard enough or is related to someone of importance they have as much chance of getting elected as anyone.

[mannix]

Sarah palin ,  mmmm, mmmmm.

[deiseach]

I think you are definitely underestimating the level of male sexism (whether direct or implied) that still exists in traditionally male-dominated spheres, which I'm sure local political parties are among.

I agree that quality shouldn't be compromised but I'm still convinced that there is base preference for men at higher levels which can be incredibly frustrating.  Women often have to work twice as hard to get on the same level.  I'm not some mad feminist but I am a female in a male-dominated world and the more I try to get up the ladder, the more my eyes are opened to how much I have to do to set myself apart from the men. 

Rant over (it's promotions time in my workplace by the way, hence my strong feelings!)

The world of politics is shot through with sexism. Gillian Shepherd once recounted how a colleague called her Betty because he called all female MP's Betty, his rationale (!) being that "you're all the same, so I call you all Betty". All other things being equal, women will find it much harder to advance in politics, so a bit of positive discrimination is easily justified.

However, the prosposals in Ireland won't work. How do you get a local constituency to select a woman? Labour were able to do it in Britain in 1997 because most Labour seats are rotten boroughs anyway, and Scandanavian countries are able to do it because they have party lists systems where it's not that great a stretch to alternate between a woman and a man all the way down the list. Hey Enda, whatever happened to electoral reform?

[Hardy]

All other things being equal, women will find it much harder to advance in politics, so a bit of positive discrimination is easily justified.

I couldn't disagree more.