By Aodh Quinlivan and Fiona Buckley,
One of the most disappointing aspects of the current local government reform proposals in Ireland is that the issue of gender equality has not been taken seriously. The government’s Putting People First proposal document pledges to promote and assist women candidates at local level by arranging meetings at family-friendly times. While this practical step is to be welcomed, there is clearly scope for much more to be done. For example, Ireland passed gender quota legislation in 2012 via the Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Act which provides for a 30 per cent quota of women candidates at the next General Election (rising to 40 per cent seven years later). Political parties who fail to comply will lose half of their annual state funding. This legislation however only applies at national level and it has not been extended to the local government arena which is a shame as the under-representation of women in local councils is a recurring theme in Ireland. At the last four local elections in Ireland women have taken 12% (1991), 15% (1999), 19% (2004) and 17% (2009) of the available seats. At the last local elections in 2009, there were 312 women candidates, representing 17 per cent of the total number. In other words, 17 per cent of candidates were women and 17 per cent of council seats were won by women. This clearly indicates that there is no electoral bias against women – the problem is that not enough women are appearing on the election ballot papers.
It is worth noting that the main political parties have put in place informal gender quotas for the local elections of May 2014, and currently, women account for just over 24 per cent of the total number of candidates selected (see http://adriankavanaghelections.org/). Only time will tell if this has a positive impact on the actual numbers of women elected, but there is some cause for optimism that the national gender quota legislation is promoting greater levels of women’s participation at the local level too. There is a logic to the political parties using the this year’s local elections to recruit, train, promote and run women with a view to having them ‘election-ready’ for the next General Election, scheduled for 2016. Given the personalism and localism inherent in Irish politics, local government experience is particularly critical to one’s chances of selection for General Election. Developing a local political base and gaining the necessary experience at local government level are very important in terms of being viewed as a credible candidate for national parliamentary elections. Research indicates that this is especially true for women who are statistically more likely than men to win a national seat if they have already served at local level (see Buckley et al -http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2305119). However, future opportunities for women’s electoral success at the local level will be shaped by the changes that result from reforms to Ireland’s local government system.
The Putting People First proposals (contained in the Local Government Bill, 2013) envisage a 73 per cent reduction of the local councils (from 114 to 31) with the complete abolition of town councils. The corresponding reduction in council seats will also be dramatic with a fall from 1,627 to 949. A decrease in the number of council seats will, of course, mean fewer opportunities for men and women to gain local government experience. In terms of advancement to the national parliament, this may hurt women more than men because, as mentioned above, local government experience has been found to be a more critical factor for the election of women to parliament (in comparison to men). It is also the case that there are more women at town council level than at city or county council level so the abolition of this entire tier of government removes the most accessible entry point for women into the political sphere.
Aodh Quinlivan and Fiona Buckley are lecturers in politics at the Department of Government, University College Cork. Aodh specialises in local government while Fiona is a specialist in gender politics.
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