Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It is lovely to see all of our guests again. I was listening remotely to the contributions and I thank everyone for them. It can often be difficult when everyone is online but at the same time, there are lots of advantages to that as well, particularly when it comes to women in politics. Our guests hit the nail on the head when they said that we need to have more flexible arrangements but that probably applies to an awful lot of work. We often find ourselves in a difficult position because it sounds like we are advocating for ourselves when we are talking about politics but what we are really saying is that we need to open it up so that more women and more people from diverse backgrounds can participate.

I have said previously that this is not just about gender but also about one's family circumstances. When I was elected to Galway City Council there had been no mothers on the previous council. There were women on the council but there were none who had children. We need to remember that in the conversations that we have. What the Green Party has found is that we have lost women councillors who were elected. The issue is not just about being elected but also about sustaining that over one's lifetime and through the changes that happen. I would love to hear our guests' thoughts on that. We have discussed maternity leave but I also think that having a full-time job or a part-time job while also having caring responsibilities is probably too much for anyone. I would welcome our guests' thoughts on that.

Regarding the Seanad in which, as a Senator, I am deeply interested, 40% of the current Seanad are women but that is because of what one could call a manipulation of the system. It is the case that not many women were elected but the Taoiseach's nominees were predominantly women and that made up the deficit. The Green Party only ran women in order to try to redress the imbalance in the Dáil, even from our own party. Are there creative ways to redress the imbalances within politics? One suggestion made previously was to emulate Malta which, as I understand it, has a panel of women and if not enough women are elected, women from the panel are added in order to make sure that politics looks like normal society.