Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

Lest anybody should think I am a rampaging golfer, I do not play golf and never have done. However, I have always been committed to equality, whether in my work life, political life or social life. Women have the same, and sometimes better, mentality, agility, mental prowess, sporting skills and other qualities as men.

This matter was raised first in the Seanad and among all Members there was equal disbelief that a golf club with such a glorious title and operation as the Portmarnock Golf Club should see fit to treat women differently from male members. I have received letters containing both praise and blame in respect of this matter. One is also told, from a high level, that some women members do not wish to pay the appropriate fee and are happy to be seen as damsels in distress if they can pay the lesser one. However, that is not the issue. That excuse is always put forward by the male species as a means of cloaking the issue. This is a macro principle, not the micro principle of who wants or does not want to pay the fee. It is a principle of equality.

Tiger Woods's arrival on the world stage of golf has transformed the race issue, but if a club was to exclude black people from membership we would be out protesting on platforms with our banners and flags and attaching ourselves to the fashionable cause of objecting to apartheid on the basis of colour. However, there is another type of apartheid whereby women are accorded, particularly under the rules of this golf club, inferior status.

I thank Senator Henry for tabling this amendment. I do not know if it is legally or correctly worded, whether it can be altered in the Seanad or how the Minister will respond to it. However, I am well aware that chauvinism is alive and well in many areas of Irish society. It is evident in political circles in general and in business circles. There is a belief that women might somehow have lost the run of themselves. They have brains, ideas and points of view. They are present, in very small numbers, in both Houses of the Oireachtas and the attitude is, "Well, is that not appropriate?"