Mr. Brian Sheehan:

I thank the Chair and Senators for the opportunity to attend the Seanad Public Consultation Committee today. As we have sent a long statement, I will not spend too long on it. Women for Election ran for ten years and was formed to redress the gender imbalance in politics at all levels in Ireland. We work with political parties, councillors, women from all parties and none and are supported by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. We work with other organisations such as See Her Elected, SHE, the National Women's Council and the Immigrant Council of Ireland to support the diversity of women in urban and rural Ireland to be elected.

In brief, Ireland ranks 103rd in the world with regard to the number of women in national politics. We rank 22nd out of 27 in the number of women in local politics in the EU. The recent local elections did not alter the number of women councillors elected. Before and after the election, 247 women make up just 26% of the councillors, despite a record number of women running. Access to politics, power and the decision-making tables in local government that impact all of our lives is over-represented by men. More women at those decision-making tables would make politics work better for everyone. More women in decision-making roles brings diverse perspectives that enrich policy and law-making and properly reflects the society being served. More women means women's lived experiences included in decisions. Our local and national government would be stronger with better representation of all the people it serves and a balance of men and women.

There are a range of barriers to women entering politics. These have been identified as the five Cs - cash, care, confidence, candidates and election and political culture - to which a sixth can be added - cyber. Those barriers have been explored in a whole range of reports which have been listed. There have been improvements in recent years, in particular, on maternity leave for councillors, hybrid meetings and the significant investment by the Government in supporting the work of political parties and organisations such as ourselves in this area, which is not to be underestimated. Despite the recognised barriers to women entering politics, it is clear that more and more women want to run. They bring their experience, expertise and skills from a wide range of areas. The decisions of our local and national governments would be better, more equitable and more representative if women such as these are present.

There have been significant initiatives from Government, councils, political parties and NGOs. However, none of these has produced a material change in the outcomes. The recent local elections have resulted in a stagnation of the number of women elected. The future of our local democracy is at stake if the under-representation of women continues. Current measures to propel changes are not yielding results. If we do not want to spend a number of decades - up to 30 or 40 years at the current rate of change - waiting for the gender gap to change organically, we need a different method of accelerating change.

I will not go through the details of the local election results as there is a lot there, but it is worthwhile to say a record number of women, 631, ran, which is a 21% increase on the last elections, with no change in the number of women elected. Just three councils have 40% or more women, namely, South Dublin County Council, Louth County Council and Dublin City Council. Donegal County Council has just three women councillors out of 37, which is 8%. There are 13 councils with less than 20% women. There are also three councils now with women cathaoirligh and nine with women leas-chathaoirligh.

In terms of where we think local democracy can shift, there is a number of issues. One is the gender quota issue. Incumbency is a key issue. More than 80% of councillors run again and more than 80% of those are elected. In this election, just 267 seats, or 28%, were available for new candidates, of which women won 82. That is a 17% return for the number of women running who were not councillors beforehand - 82 out of 478 women. There is a very poor return for women running. We have to get women running in winnable seats. Political parties had significant numbers of women running, but again, the numbers did not necessarily reflect an overall change in women running. I have provided a chart.

Fine Gael has the highest number of elected women before and after the election. Sinn Féin had the highest number of women candidates. The challenge is that without quotas, the change in the number of women elected will depend on the political tide being either in or out for parties that have a large proportion of women candidates. In that context, the Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality and the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Gender Equality have recommended candidate gender quotas for the general election be extended to local elections.

It is really key that we explore that and put adequate supports in for political parties and councils to ensure that gender quota can have a sustained investment to bring forward women and place them in winnable seats over the next couple of years. I will hand over to my colleague.