Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The formation of this Government left people under absolutely no illusion. This was a Government formed to keep the old boys club alive and well. A record number of jobs were given to as many men as possible. For every five seats at Cabinet, one is taken by a woman. They are outnumbered and I would go so far as to say completely overlooked. The Taoiseach then claimed he would sort this out. He was going to sort his mess by using the unprecedented number of Ministers of State he was hoping to have at his fingertips. What message do we think this sends to young women? It is that the senior jobs are for the boys, but do not worry, we will give you a little consolation prize later. The Ministers of State were then announced and the Government did not even manage to do that.

I was asked recently why I thought this was. The question is whether the Government looked at its options. Did Micheál Martin and Simon Harris purposely ignore women of talent or did they simply not have enough women of talent to promote? One of these has to be true. There either are women of talent who are being prevented from coming forward or there are no women of talent. Either way, there is a problem within this Government and that is writ very large all over the programme for Government. Fine Gael leads the way with the greatest number of women councillors elected. You would think that was satire, would you not? You genuinely would. You would think it was something out of Waterford Whispers News, but actually this was a headline from one of the party's press releases issued in June. It went on to say that Fine Gael has demonstrated leadership in female political representation. Some 66 of the Fine Gael councillors elected in June were women. For every three men who sit on a council for Fine Gael, one woman has a seat. This is less than 30% of its candidates who are women. I suppose, though, if the party is comparing itself to Fianna Fáil, it probably thinks it is flying. Fianna Fáil ran the lowest percentage of women and to absolutely nobody's surprise the party elected the lowest share of women. It had 197 men elected and 51 women elected. Women represent 52% of the population, but you would not think it because they only represent about 20% of Fianna Fáil.

My party elected almost 40% women in November and in June. We not only have strong women here in this Chamber and are led by a strong woman but we also have a pipeline of strong women. We have Aoife Masterson and Niamh Whelan, as well as women like Kourtney Kenny, strong, young, Republican women who are building and preparing. When my time in politics comes to an end, I will be proud to step back and know I have not pulled the ladder up behind me and that I have left open a pathway for these strong, capable, talented, Republican women to come forward.

With so many lads promoted by the Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Lowry Government, it will come as a surprise to nobody to see that the programme for Government falls well short of what we might expect from a progressive or even a halfway decent Government. There is no timeline to abolish the cruel means test for the carers allowance. Sure why would you? There is no mention of the right to organise for workers. That is someone else's problem and certainly not one this Government is going to be willing to deal with. There is also no mention of the living wage, and this actually did surprise me because, ordinarily, workers on a low income do get some sort of a mention in the programme for Government when the parties of the right come together to compose one.

However, there was not even a very low level of meaningless soundbites regarding the minimum wage. In fact, it is not mentioned in it at all. We know that women are over-represented in caring roles and low-paid employment. The programme for Government confirms for them exactly where the Government's priorities are; ordinary people, and women in particular, can head to the back of the queue. This is what happens when the lads spend all of their time obsessing over who is getting what job, how many high chairs can fit around a reasonably sized Cabinet table, and who is getting the car or the half-car. Just so two more men are not disappointed, we are told there will be some sort of timeshare arrangement for the Leas-Cheann Comhairle role. All the while, carers, workers on low wages and people who cannot afford to rent or buy are left wondering why they are not a priority.

Opposition is about holding the Government to account - it got a lesson in that this week. That is something we fully intend to do.

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