Ms Megan Reilly:

I will touch on a few points that have been brought up in the discussion. It is a multifaceted issue and we are trying to touch on all the points here. Regarding political parties, many parties have their own internal structures to increase diversity and the number of women involved. That is great but quite often we meet with a certain attitude. Politics is by its nature competitive but there is almost a trade secrets approach to it. That is something that women and other minority groups need to be let into. All have echoed their support for the local quotas today. They are a short, sharp shock against those decades of incumbency and will help us get over those structural and cultural barriers much faster. It is a very positive thing for the parties as well because it helps increase the pipeline towards the likes of the Dáil and the Seanad. A lot of that starts locally. We would definitely support that.

I want to touch on one of the points Dr. Buckley made about the administrative functions and support for those. We have sometimes come up against this issue. Even when dealing with councils, there can be a lack of funding for secretariats for women's caucuses. They are formed as semi-formal or informal structures but often once funding runs out there is no way for that to continue. We all recognise women's caucuses and the parliamentary women's caucus is a great vehicle to support and maintain women's involvement in politics.

Ms Gleeson referred to the Offaly programme we are doing at the moment. It is fair to say there has been resistance in certain sectors. It is definitely a reminder of the old attitudes that are out there that we need to counteract. We need education and information around this, about why we have quotas in place and why there are going to be quotas in place. I imagine that will meet with resistance as well, unless there is a conversation. We are definitely leading a conversation on that at the moment but we need to continue that conversation. We have found, and hopefully it will pay off, that concentrated work is best. That involves going into a county and doing concentrated work around developing a pipeline of candidates across the various parties supporting women. That goes back to the party aspect, whereby women need to be supported right from the moment of joining a party up until the moment of candidacy. It also relates to the issue of not putting women into unwinnable seats and being very clear with candidates. Oftentimes when people run, they will not win the first time. That is okay but there need to be honest conversations around that so that women are not met with rejection and are well aware that sometimes it is a long game they are playing.

The role of the councillor needs examination. It is more friendly towards certain professions that allow people to go into council seats. On the responsibilities of care, we have had discussions with councillors who have said remote meetings are a positive but I worry that it is falling to women on individual councils to have to lobby in order to get remote voting and hybrid meetings in place. That is a real benefit and we have heard from women with caring responsibilities that it is a real benefit for them as well. I touched on many points there but hopefully covered it all.