Ivana Bacik (Independent)

It is all about transgressing boundaries. In Norway, a national databank of potential women candidates was established in order to get over the perceived difficulty that women do not put themselves forward for election. The most significant recommendation was the need for the sort of legislation we are discussing today. We recommended the model of an opportunity quota which is quite a modest proposal, already adopted in over 100 countries and first used in Latin America, in Argentina. It is not a European invention but it is relatively modest, that enhances voter choice by increasing the numbers of women going forward to face voters in an election but which does not restrict them by placing a quota on the numbers of seats in parliament, something which would be problematic in this country and under European law.

The Seanad held two debates following publication of our report, in April and May 2010, and I note the significant cross-party support at that time for the principle of that legislation. Labour Women also published a Bill to bring forward the same principle and therefore, a good deal of work has been done on this legislation. The commitment to introduce this legislation was placed in the programme for Government and the Minister introduced the Bill in December 2011. I am delighted it is being initiated in the Seanad.

The Minister has referred to the public debate since the Bill was published. I wish to briefly mention the argument that it might be unconstitutional. Like the Minister, I believe there is no substance to this argument and I have quite robustly contested that view in the Sunday Independent on the basis that there is no basis for it. To suggest that a political party has a right to any particular level of State funding is misguided and there is no premise for it in the Constitution which does not in fact recognise political parties. Indeed, the freedom of association is very restrictively framed but I think this can be surmounted.

On the issues of whether the Bill goes far enough, I accept the Minister's point that 30% was the target we recommended in 2009. It is more ambitious for some parties than others. Clearly, the Labour Party is already close to that figure but I accept that for some parties it will be much more difficult to reach and therefore it needs to be a realistic but achievable target, given the level of sanction.

I suggest we should look again at extending the provisions of the Bill to include local and European elections, as recommended in our report. I can see the difficulty with the funding issue but this might be reviewed. We might wish to review the sunset clause. In practice, this has tended to lapse in any case. Denmark, for example, removed the law on quotas because they had reached a level of women's representation that was self-sustaining. Once a critical mass in politics is achieved, it will sustain itself.

I thank the Minister for introducing this Bill and I thank all colleagues. I hope we will have all-party support in this House. We know from experience that this Bill is necessary, that the sort of measures it introduces is the best way to increase the numbers of women in politics to ensure our democracy will no longer be unrepresentative and incomplete.