Ms Eva Dowling:

I thank the Cathaoirleach and Senators for the invitation to participate in these proceedings. I am a Green Party councillor and leas-chathaoirleach of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. I am a mum to three children. I have worked in politics all of my professional career. Today I will share some of my personal experiences and speak about some of the things we are doing well in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown which relate to the goals of this committee around women’s participation in local government and the challenges that face councillors with families.

I first ran for election in 2019 and on election day my eldest child had just turned eight weeks old. You can imagine becoming a parent, a mum, for the first time, learning everything that goes with that and also trying to get your election campaign under way. I managed to get through the campaign because of the support of my family, my friends, my party and, most important, the electorate, who believed that a new mum could do the job and represent them at local government.

What I found really challenging, as a mum working in politics, was staying in the job especially as my family increased in size. Fortunately we are doing some things really well in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, which helped me and other councillors like me.

First, the introduction of maternity leave for councillors has been a game changer. On the arrival of my youngest child I was able to avail of some of the supports from the scheme. It is a great pity that there is no provision for paternity leave. If we are to make local politics attractive for people with families, supports like childcare at council buildings or an allowance for childcare for councillors to attend meetings should be considered.

The second thing that helped me was the introduction of hybrid meetings. Our local authority was the first to fully embrace remote and hybrid meetings. Seven months after my second child was born, and therefore past the six months maternity leave, we were working through the second round of our county development plan meetings. These meetings go very late - usually until 10 p.m. and sometimes past midnight or 1 a.m. - for weeks on end. For me, this was not an appropriate place to bring my seven-month-old, breastfed baby. We went through over 300 motions and votes during this round of meetings. As the meetings were facilitated as hybrid, I was able to participate fully. I did not miss a single vote and I was still able to be there for my son.

Hybrid meetings were introduced due to the Covid-19 pandemic. There are councils who refuse to embrace them. There are councils – including my own – where there are attempts to water them down. It should not have taken a global pandemic to introduce this facility. This committee must prioritise the maintenance and full roll-out of hybrid meetings across all councils, because the value that they bring to women, people with families and people with disabilities is enormous.

The final thing that I want to share about what we are doing well in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown is the culture of our workplace. When I first joined, almost all of the most senior roles on the executive were held by women. Not long after the council term commenced, we became the first local authority in the country to achieve full gender balance in the chamber. Those balances have shifted over the past five years but in my experience, the company culture has not. Working with councillors across the chamber, officials and council staff has always been a positive experience for me. We will not agree on everything, but I do not feel like my gender is a factor in that. I am asking this committee to examine the company culture of other local authorities and to survey other sitting and former women councillors and ask them what their experience has been like.

I was first elected in May 2019, as a new mum with an eight-week-old baby. On election day this year, my children’s ages will be five, three and one and I will have just entered my sixth month of pregnancy with my fourth child. My family, my friends, my party, and the residents of the Stillorgan electoral ward will support me through this election campaign. It is because of things like maternity leave, hybrid meetings and our company culture in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown that I feel confident to keep going for another five years. We have achieved a lot but we can still do more. Paternity leave, a childcare allowance, a full roll-out of hybrid meetings and a survey of company culture would be a great place to start.