Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

That is a more optimistic note. The parties' views being different from the views of individual councillors might be an issue. Tying funding of political parties to performance in local elections could be done through legislative change. We looked at it back in 2012 when bringing in the original gender quota and we will examine this again because the citizens' assembly has been very clear. The resistance was more to do with the whole framework of party funding it that would have been more difficult to unpick the link mechanism than simply to impose what is, in fact, is a very serious sanction of losing half of State funding if they not meet the gender quota for national elections. That was seen as the simpler way of doing it. However, there is certainly a gathering momentum about bringing in a quota for locals. We are committed to implementing recommendations of the citizens' assembly which are very clear that a quota is wanted at every level, including local level.