Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 2 March 2023
Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement
Architects of the Good Friday Agreement (Resumed): Ms Bronagh Hinds
Ms Bronagh Hinds:
Well, I was just about to say that. Fermanagh had Aideen McGinley for a period and when Aideen went, we were back to all-male councillors.
Then we reduced the number of councils. What we wanted to see was equal numbers of women in senior positions. One of the reasons we wanted to do that is that there is an awful lot of money spent politically, by political representatives, in local councils. They do not have a lot of money from their parties and so when politicians are supported locally, they are often supported by the administration and local councils. We saw that it was extremely important to invest in developing women leaders among council officials as well as developing and supporting women councillors because those networks were formed. We got to a point where we ended up with five women chief executives of the reduced number of local councils. What was the reduced number of councils?
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