Fiona O'Malley (Independent)

This is a first because I agree wholeheartedly, I would say for the first time in my life, with Sinn Féin and the previous speaker in that our Constitution offends both men and women and it drastically needs a rehaul. It is on that basis and having regard to speakers who are seeking a new system of election that I decided to approach this debate from a solutions point of view rather than merely as a discussion. I knew this issue would be aired and the shortcomings or reasons we do not have more women in politics are well established. It was in light of this debate on how we can encourage more women to become involved in politics that caused me to reflect and examine our system. I thought the only fair way of having a quota and getting more women into politics - the system must be based on fairness - is that 50% of the Members elected to the Dáil Éireann would be male and 50% would be female. Therefore, we would have a 50:50 quota. As I was thinking about this very simple idea I realised we would have to change our system totally and that is a reason I went further in this respect. I thought we should cut the numbers. The only way we will be able to elect 50% males and 50% females is by having two panels, as we have in the Seanad. People would be elected from the male panel and from the female panel. The easiest way to do that would be to have two seat constituencies. In that way, everything would have to be redrawn. Equally, we would need a new voting system because it would have to be a first past the post system. This is quite a radical proposal but if we are to go beyond paying pure lip service of involving more women in politics, why not do this? This is part of what I enjoy about being an Independent, as such, because I would not have been able to come up with or espouse it if I were a member of a political party because I would have been shot down to a certain extent. I respect what happens in political parties - I was in one - and how policy is formulated.

We have reached a stage when we need radical solutions to our problems and our politics. This plan places a certain constraint on the voter if asked to be listed only on a male or a female ballot. I will speak in greater detail about this proposal at the Joint Committee on the Constitution tomorrow. I imagine it is one about which people need to think because it asks us to suspend how we conduct politics. There are plenty of people who will say that is not a bad thing and that we should try something new.

I would like to see this plan trialled. The only way we will know if women make a difference in politics is if we have the opportunity to observe it. Why not put this plan into action in the next two general elections? After that, let us look at it again. One of the problems I have with the Constitution is that once something is put into it, it is set in stone and cannot be touched. That is not very satisfactory because the Constitution is from a different era. When one reads it, as I did, one sees how offensive it is in many ways. The fact that a constitutional referendum is needed should not be a reason not to go ahead with this plan.

It will have a dramatic effect on party politics and it is one of the reasons the political parties, which control our system of elections, will not buy into it. This is where one must try to appeal to the people over the political parties. The political parties will not change a system which has, by and large, worked for them. That is why I agree completely with what was said about culture and the culture within political parties, which has been discussed quite a bit. It will take an awfully long time to change it if we leave it to the current system.

I was quite hostile to quotas originally but I thought about how politics could be different. This is a very radical and experimental idea which is worth considering. The notion that we might trial it for two electoral terms is interesting. Senator Fitzgerald mentioned the number of women in politics in Spain as a result of quotas. The important question is, what difference did it make? Did it make a difference to their politics?