Caít Keane (Fine Gael)

A number of Senators have spoken about getting women to run for election and I commend them on their work in that respect. To quote a speech:

It has been my experience that the style of leadership usually pursued by women makes them particularly effective in getting the job done. There is accumulating evidence that women bring a set of communication and interpersonal skills to the workplace which, while often ignored in the past, are better suited to the team-oriented leadership of the 21st Century ... While we have made progress in relation to gender equality, there are still many barriers to be broken. Despite high standards of education, women still have not been afforded the opportunity to fill many key decision-making roles. It is not only women but society as a whole that suffers a loss from such exclusion. In many instances, women are not enabled and empowered to bring their expertise to the table to ensure that our decision-making is based on the balanced views and experiences of both genders. It is a matter of regret to me that patriarchy and its related authoritarianism still prevails in many fields and that it conspires to self-perpetuate, despite all the evidence in support of the value of diversified decision-making.

In many instances, women are not enabled and empowered to bring their expertise to the table to ensure that our decision-making is based on the balanced views and experiences of both genders. It is a matter of regret to me that patriarchy and its related authoritarianism still prevails in many fields and that it conspires to self-perpetuate, despite all the evidence in support of the value of diversified decision-making.

Those are not my words, but those of President Higgins speaking in Belfast last week, for which I applaud him.