Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

Forcing solutions on democracies does not work. To take teaching and nursing as examples, both professions are predominately female — 80% to 90% of nurses and teachers are, I believe, female — yet women frequently exclude themselves from positions as trade union representatives in these professions. They do so for good reasons, including on family grounds, but they also make career choices for other reasons. I would love to have more women Members but the Oireachtas and politics in general are not family friendly.

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