Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I am a practical person in that regard. It is a question of participation being seen as a means to an end.

We need to consider other matters also. One of the problems with Parliament, apart from the fact that it is very much a male club and male-friendly, an environment in which I am very comfortable, is that its schedule is not attractive to women. We need to tell the media that may take an interest in this issue that the idea of parliamentarians being in Parliament five days a week is a lot of nonsense, anti-democratic and bad for decision-making. We need parliamentarians to be in Parliament for two and a half days. Meeting for two and a half long days would be more attractive to women than the current arrangement. I do not believe having a crèche in Parliament is very attractive if one is in an occupation in which one does not know whether one is going to finish at 5 p.m., 7 p.m., midnight or 1 a.m. If one was required to be in one's constituency for half the week and in Parliament for the other half, it would be a much more attractive proposition. We should consider this and take on the media commentators who present it as people not working. The last thing we need is the kind of Parliament featured in other countries whose parliamentarians would deign to visit their constituencies every couple of months, as if to say to the little people, "Here I am, I am back again." We need to consider having a quota of opportunity for a limited period. Let us see how it would work, assess it and determine its outcome.

In five constituencies during the last election there was not even a choice to vote for a woman. We do not want this to happen again. I am not attracted by the idea of someone looking at a ballot paper and saying he or she is going to vote for a woman, but the women who would stand for election would have a lot to offer and afford the voter a real opportunity in terms of diversity of representation and choice. We have tried many approaches. It cannot be true that decisions are better made by men only or any other gender.

I have faced this issue in various professions. In the teaching profession it is important that there be role models representative of our community, society and nation. This would involve a gender balance that would be more or less 50:50. We should strive towards meeting the objective of creating the opportunities to allow this to happen. That is the great value of the report in question. It does not tie people down and stipulate there must be a 50:50 ratio of men to women. I have always been unhappy with such stipulations. What we would be doing is creating a quota of opportunity to ensure parties nominated a certain number of people at all times, not to be restrictive but to afford a greater opportunity to participate with a view to having better decision-making. Voters would have greater opportunities when selecting candidates and a better climate for decision-making would be created in Parliament.

I support the report, the debate on which is very important. I would like to annoy people for a little longer, but I have run out of time. We need to address these issues.