Tony McLoughlin (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fine Gael)

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on the Bill, which seeks to incentivise and encourage the selection of a greater number of female candidates, which is a welcome proposal, one that has provided much debate inside and outside this House.

Being a politician is more suited to the male gender than the female gender, which is wrong. I welcome that this is being addressed by the Minister in this Bill. The burden of home and domestic duties, even in this modern changing society, appears to lie with the woman of the house, which in essence has stifled the progress of many women climbing the political ladder. The recent movie "The Iron Lady", which documented in a brief way the political career of former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, illustrated the 1950s era in Britain when she first tried to win a Conservative Party nomination and how this male dominated profession tried to intimidate her into not contesting. Only for her resilience and tenacity she would never have secured her party's nomination and Britain would never have had its first and only female Prime Minister.

Society has come a long way, when in the Ireland of 2012, we are introducing legislation which includes the provision that political parties will have their State political funding halved if in the next general election at least 30% of their candidates are not female and 30% are not male. This will increase to 40% after a further seven years. The Government must in any future legislation consider an improvement in conditions to allow women to enter politics. I will give an example. Currently, all elected county and city councillors pay a small PRSI contribution which bestows little or no entitlements. A female councillor who must absent herself from council meetings or business for a period of time due to maternity has no recourse to benefits. Surely this is not right and does not send out the right signal if we are to attract women to contest local elections in 2014. The Government must look again at the provision of proper child support for active female politicians so as to make it easy to be a politician and a woman. I suggest that as part of local government reform research be undertaken of the reason so few women are attracted to local government. This should, perhaps, be done in conjunction with LAMA, AMAI and the ACCA, the councillors representative bodies. I urge the Minister to engage with these organisations on the provision of incentives around child care and home supports which would lift the bar and attract more women into local politics. A survey of women politicians in 2004 carried out by Knight Consultants found that the long hours culture of Leinster House was unfriendly to women with young children. Some 69%, 16 of 23, of female Members in the previous Dáil were located in the Dublin-Leinster area, which suggests that this disincentive may be exacerbated for women who would be required to be away from home from Tuesday to Thursday. While there is a crèche in Leinster House it is of no benefit to such women. Also, as female Members of the Dáil and Seanad are not employees, they are not, if they become pregnant while in office, entitled to statutory maternity. Some 86 of the 566 candidates - 15.19% - who sought election in the 2011 general election were female. As a society that wants more women in politics, we must, if we are to attract them in the first instance, present to them an environment in which they can work and flourish as decision makers.

Reform of political funding has been promised for years. Despite that the Government has been in office for only 14 months it is introducing this far-reaching and progressive piece of political reform legislation which will significantly enhance the openness and transparency of political funding in Ireland. This legislation will address issues of serious public concern in terms of the operation of political funding arrangements in Ireland. Corporate donations will be restricted, political party accounts will be published, the maximum amount that can be accepted as a political donation will be more than halved and the transparency of such donations is being significantly enhanced. Payments made to political parties under the electoral Acts are linked to performance at a general election. These new requirements will, therefore, apply in respect of candidates of political parties at a general election.

While this Bill is not intended to deal with individual candidates and their code of ethics, given we are dealing with political funding, regard should be had to candidates that are being funded. I urge the Minister to consider in any future electoral Bill the disqualification of persons who have been convicted of defrauding a local authority, the State or a semi-state body, from taking a seat on a local authority or in the Oireachtas. Such people are not fit persons to be public representatives as they may, as local or national legislators making decisions, have a bearing on many of the aforementioned State agencies. Current legislation deals with persons subject to bankruptcy. Given the current insolvency levels across Ireland among citizens, it is incredible that people who become bankrupt perhaps for having been over ambitious in their business would be debarred from being a Member of this House or a local authority while a person convicted of defrauding a State body is not debarred. This area needs to be reviewed without delay.

I warmly welcome this Bill as a positive step in political reform. It is hoped that in time the Government will consider introducing in future legislative measures that will take on board the points I have made in regard to the type of people who contest elections to serve in our national and local assemblies.

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