Joe O'Toole (Independent)

My question was rhetorical. I was a member of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission at the time and know exactly what took place. The reason Members did not use the facility was they could not be sure when they would start and finish work. They could not operate in the manner normal workplaces worked. They could not, for instance, leave work at 5 p.m. or indicate that their child would be in the crèche for a specified number of hours each day. There is also an attitudinal problem. The Oireachtas is a male club and will continue to be so until such time as the men here decide to change matters.

Most speakers agree on the objective of increasing women's participation in politics, although they may differ on how to achieve it. The answer lies within ourselves. If we want to make changes, we can do so. Even without quotas, we could take a strong line on how we expect people to operate and what the job involves. I would begin with a job description for politicians. If the Minister of State comes across such a description, perhaps she will forward it to me because I have never seen one. The trick for a politician is the number of masses he or she covers on a Sunday and the number of funerals he or she attends on a Monday. Rules should be established because if we do not have a proper balance in what people do as public representatives, they will effectively do a job they have not been elected to do. The reason is that if one was to do the job one was elected to do, one would not be re-elected.