Dr. Michelle Maher:

One of the recommendations in, I believe, the Moorhead report on the role and remuneration of county councillors was to look at employers being compensated in some way to allow employees to leave and be absent from work to partake in their county council responsibilities.

This is another example of a lack of joined-up thinking. We have very well researched and funded reports but the issue is to join them all up. In terms of the recommendation that employers are compensated, there is no reason that the same proviso would not apply for candidates as well. It is a reality and is one of the reasons programmes like ours prepare women years out from a local election. The reality is that three to four weeks before a local election, candidates cannot be at work and cannot meet much of their caring responsibilities either. Campaign strategies need to take account of that.