Ms Caitr?ona Gleeson:

I do not want to repeat too much of what has already been said but I support it. In Women for Election's formative years, there was a response to providing training in advance of elections. This was in response to the need that had been identified when the Lisbon treaty referendum was taking place. Our founders identified the need because women said they did not know how to access politics. For ten years, Women for Election have been tailoring programmes to meet the emerging needs. From approximately 2019, post the local elections, what became more possible was to be able to resource the advanced training programmes, such as our campaign schools like the INSPIRE campaign school and our new EQUIP campaign school, as well as all of the taster programmes and master classes, which have been working to equip women way out. It is one of the first messages in our campaign schools. That, along with the work that SHE is doing is quite critical, in order that women can unlock politics far in advance.

To address the initial questions, in response to the issue of the deflection by the Taoiseach yesterday on the issue of the quotas, this is not the first time I have heard it and I am disappointed to see that deflection again. I echo both the previous speakers’ points on the missed opportunity in 2014 to not to have had quotas in for local elections. That is what we are feeling now on the ground. Local politics is suffering because we do not have women right across the country. At the end of this year, Women for Election is due to launch a new data hub, which is a national mapped dynamic programme. We are working on it with a number of academics, namely, the All-Island Research Observatory and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. It is visually mapping the 23 local electoral areas, LEAs, where there are no women. I happen to live in one in Sligo where there is no woman. I come from another in Clare in Killaloe where there is no women elected. To grow up with that and to see that you do not have a choice, it is not even around the policies, but you do not have a choice in 23 of the LEAs.

As for the critical piece around the quotas, Dr. Buckley has talked about the financial incentives. We would go further, and I referred to this in my opening statement, to bring in the penalties as well. The Citizens’ Assembly made as a recommendation that penalties would be included and it is important that this is maintained. We have a package and certainly even an incentive to kick it off but the standard we need to be establishing in politics is not even a target for quotas. It is that we get to a place where politics is seen as an equal place for our entire society and that the diversity of women and men is represented in our chambers. It is a critical piece.

I am concerned that we will miss the 2024 opportunity. The 40% Dáil quotas, which will be from 2023 onwards, are putting more pressure on the parties to make sure that they get more women on the tickets but it will not sustain that. We have no shortage of women who want to come forward and no shortage of women who want to get elected. Ms Reilly will speak shortly about how those women need to be supported and not having those last-minute advertisements.

In terms of the action plan, when I came into the post, I was quite struck that there is no national strategy to get to 50:50. There is, under the national strategy for women and girls, one action that is held under local government and is focused on local government. We referred in our opening statement to what we see the need for, which is a stepped-out plan that includes getting the quotas in place before 2024. It should have all of these. We have ingredients on the table and we do not have to do an awful lot of soul searching. I note that Ms Reilly and I are both wearing black and white today. It is quite straightforward and it is distinctive. However, what we have not had is a co-ordinated Government response on it. There are opportunities within the wider recommendations of the assembly to slip that into the gender equality unit in order that there is an agency to hold that but it is a matter of resources.

At the moment, we are reliant on donations to continue our work. It is not feasible for the likes of Women for Election or for SHE to be reliant on ad hocfunding when our roles are quite critical. We look forward to the day that we become redundant and I mean that quite genuinely. We think it is possible to achieve this work. Ireland is suffering by not having diversity at the tables. In terms of the local quotas and into the general quotas, the committee will have National Traveller Women's Forum Ireland before it next week. Earlier, the work by Dr. Pauline Cullen and Dr. Shane Gough was referred to, and it is quite critical. We have never elected a Traveller woman anywhere in Ireland to Government, which is a shocking indictment of our democracy. It is our native ethnic minority population, and we have no representation for it, with the exception of Senator Flynn, who has brought such a contribution in that short time, being nominated to the Seanad. Among all of the population groups there has been no elected ethnic minority woman locally or nationally to the Dáil. These are things that have to radically change.

On a co-ordinated strategy, I support the full-time role being recognised at local government. The role is misrepresented in many ways. There are practical things and I defer again to the National Women’s Council of Ireland's toolkit. We worked closely with the council and with other groups to see things being developed, such as training for chairs and cathaoirligh locally and with even the hybrid meetings in order that meetings will run efficiently. These long, never-ending meetings are not conducive to that, particularly for people who are time poor, who are predominantly women.

I will speak on a final area, before I hand over to Ms Reilly. She will speak about work we are doing in Offaly at present, where there is one woman out of 19 councillors and about the resistance we are meeting in doing that work that is focused on women only in Offaly itself. There is also the area of abuse of women in public life, which we have not really touched on today. Then there is the issue of security and safety for women in public life, which is disproportionate because while the issue affects men in public life, we have a greater issue in terms of women in public life.

We have legislation that is quite good and there is some coming in that can be strengthened but what we do not have are resourced and trained implementation mechanisms. The committee will be familiar with my 20 years of previous work in the field of gender-based violence and my credentials. We do not yet have a system that is effective for anyone who is experiencing gender-based abuse, particularly women. What I have seen since coming into public life is that politicians are expected to come in wearing a thick skin. That is not okay and not enough. We should be able to enter into public spaces and exert a right to represent people without fear or threat for our own safety or our families' safety. We should commend all politicians who have continued to endure and survived that with a very brave and upfront face. It is not okay and we need to look at mechanisms around that.