Mr. Brian Sheehan:

I thank the Senator for those questions. To save time, I will come back on some of them. I appreciate the consistency around the address issue. I thank the Senator for raising that. The is an opportunity coming in the electoral Bill, which is due soon. It could be the vehicle to drive that, as well as including additional childcare costs as an allowable electoral expense.

I will come back to Senator Black with more detail on the family friendly issue. They apply in particular to women but also to men and to people who are single parents. Much of it goes to care. There was talk of crèches, short meetings and late meetings. A big issue seemed to be the arrival of papers in advance of council meetings. They often arrived on Friday for a meeting on Monday. It is just not possible to do it. There are things like that. Another thing that has been raised already is the kind of culture on councils that are dominated by men by virtue of numbers. There is a culture that needs to shift to have a bit more civility in general - that goes across all layers of politics - to be more inclusive of women. We have many examples of women who felt excluded in the course of how councils work.

If I may I will pick up on other things later. Briefly on how we accelerate progress, I would say a couple of things. We have worked very closely with councils across the country. They are super avenues to drive engagement at grassroots level with women, as the Senator said. In particular, we do a lot of sessions, in partnership with the council, where we bring women into sitting council chambers. That is a real driver of change where women can see themselves sitting in those seats. We would like the funding that is made available by the Department to councils to be much earlier and much more sustained in order that it could be a five-year plan rather than a plan in the last year or so. That is a really positive initiative and one which could be accelerated.

We think quotas are really important for diversity but it is about women in winnable seats. The corollary of quotas is that political parties are strongly supported to bring people through from the earliest levels and the grassroots level, as the Senator said, all the way up. They go hand in hand. There is scope for them and we know they work but it is about winnable seats.

The last thing is about the political parties. As Mr. Moylan just said, there are opportunities. Labour in the UK had women-only shortlists for much of its selection conventions. It led to 52% women in the Labour Party in the last Parliament. It is a very different system and I get that.

Women-only co-options will support the incumbent councillors being elected. Political parties having 50% women on all internal committees, particularly selection committees, brings forward the talented and capable women we know are there who could serve as councillors.