Averil Power (Fianna Fail)

I welcome Minister. I also welcome those in the Visitors' Gallery. It is great to see so many women in the Chamber, although there is a good gender balance in the Seanad, due in large part - this should be acknowledged - to the fact that the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste in appointing the 11 nominees to the House wisely chose seven women. We have seen the contributions these women have made to the House. I also acknowledge the presence for the debate of former Senator Mary Henry and the contribution she made over a long period. She was a role model for many women.

As the Minister pointed out, women have never made up more than 15% of the membership of the Lower House. It is worth recognising - I make this point in particular to those who point out that this will change over time - that no real progress has been made in the past 20 years. In the most recent general election in 2011 only five more women were elected than in 1992. The percentage increased from 12% in 1992 to 15% last year. The reason for this is very clear: the parties have not offered the electorate a choice.

Of the 556 candidates who ran in the most recent general election, only 86 or 15% were women. There is a direct correlation between the number of candidates offered to the electorate and the number of women who make it through. As some constituencies have had no female candidates, what choice have voters had in these constituencies? When I ran in Dublin North-East, I was the only woman on the ticket. This did not offer a real choice of gender balance to voters in the constituency. Parties of all hues, my own included, have failed Irish democracy during the years by not giving the electorate a real choice. It is welcome that the Bill will address this issue.

The lack of women in politics has a real impact. Although the lives of men and women have changed much and have become increasingly similar in many ways, there are still so many ways in which they are different. Increasingly, men look after their children and play a caring role in the family, but the vast majority of people who do so on a full-time basis are female, whether it is looking after a child or an elderly parent. The majority in part-time work are female, as are the majority of those subjected to domestic violence. Until our democracy is more representative of the population, certain issues which will never really be addressed by the political system. Therefore, I welcome the measures brought forward in the Bill.

Like many others, I am a reluctant supporter of quotas. None of us want quotas and I do not think anybody thinks they represent a a good option. However, they are a necessary evil. I appreciate the significant opposition to them outside the House, and there is certainly significant opposition to them in my party. I have received e-mails and correspondence from people who are deeply unhappy about the idea which they see as undemocratic. Equally, I point out that in the history of the State the number of women elected points to the fact that the system is undemocratic and represents a failure of democracy. If the system was perfect, we would not need to tinker with it, but it is fundamentally flawed. The all-party committee came to the conclusion that the experience in other countries showed that the system could not and would not change unless positive measures were put in place. That is why we must support the Bill.

Crucially, the report also found that quotas alone would not fix the problem and that we needed a comprehensive package of reforms addressing other issues such as child care, the procedures of the Houses and working hours. We also need training and support for new female candidates. It is encouraging to see the 50:50 Group advocating strongly for a change in Irish politics. Some of its members are present. Women for Election has received substantial philanthropic funding for the provision of training and mentoring support for women. This will ensure the candidates put forward by all parties will have the supports needed to be successful.

It is often said women do not put themselves forward for election. That really upsets me because it is too easy for parties to say this. As all Members know, in every constituency women are involved in chambers of commerce and running community projects. I am often contacted by women from a local group involved in a campaign. Women are on the boards of management of the local schools and therefore are involved in politics in the broader sense. If they are not involved in party politics we need to examine what is wrong with politics and not ask what is wrong with women. If women are taking leadership roles in community organisations and in other professions, which is a dramatic change in recent years, and politics has not changed in 20 years we must examine the political system and change it. We must change the culture also and I hope that by having a critical mass of women elected to Parliament young girls will see pictures of those parliamentarians and think that is a job they could do. We need more role models in that regard but, unfortunately, politics is seen as the preserve of men. We support the legislation although I will table two amendments on Committee Stage.

I accept the point the Minister made about the local elections and the way the legislation is currently structured, which is based on general election funding, but I am not sure that has to be the case. We will look into that in more detail before the Bill comes back for Committee Stage but I do not understand why funding cannot be apportioned on the basis of general election performance, subject to review after the following local election. That would be an incentive for parties to keep up at the local election because the local elections are crucial. Of the 83 new TDs elected to the Dáil last year two thirds were councillors while candidates with no previous experience in elected office generally faired poorly, getting less than 1,000 first preference votes. The local elections are a key starting point in this regard and the legislation should be amended to change that. Just because the funding donation is phrased in a particular way currently does not mean it has to remain that way. We need to be a bit more creative in that regard.

I will propose a sunset clause on Committee Stage in that once the number of women elected to the Dáil reaches 40% and remains at that level for the next two general elections, the quotas would go. That is crucial. The quota system should not be in place forever. I would be a reluctant supporter of quotas but once the change has been made and, crucially, once we have that critical mass in Parliament, they should go. We intend to table an amendment in that regard.

On the issue of political donations, as the Minister is aware our party introduced a much more comprehensive political donations Bill last year but it was rejected by the Government. We want to ban corporate donations within constitutional limits but we were advised it would not be constitutional to fully ban them and instead proposed that a €100 limit be set on them, which I think would cover the cost of a poster in a shop window. We proposed that and I believe it should be taken up. I believe that only an individual who is entitled to vote should give a donation. I do not support corporate donations.

We also proposed a lower threshold for the declaration of donations which is crucial because in many respects it is the mystique about donations that causes a lack of confidence in the system and people not knowing who is giving what to whom. That is the reason we proposed a much lower threshold. The change in the Bill which will require individual candidates to declare donations over €600 as opposed to the previous figure of €634 will not make any tangible difference. I would like the limit to be much lower.

Fianna Fáil supports both aspects of the Bill but we would like to see it improved and will table amendments on Committee Stage to that effect.