Averil Power (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the amendment, which takes the correct approach. When I read through the Bill, it was clear that it had carefully provided for gender quotas in other aspects of the election, but there was a glaring gap in respect of local authority elections. The Minister is taking the right approach and his amendment is preferable to the amendment tabled by Senators Bacik and Moran, although I understand the spirit behind that amendment. I had actually considered proposing the same wording but decided against it.

During the Seanad election campaign I visited some counties where there were only one or two female councillors on a local authority. This made it difficult to draft an amendment that would make sense. Much as it is important to have proper gender representation on the ETBs, the alternative wording that has been put forward would go too far in that if there is only one female member of the local authority, she would be forced to go on to the ETB in order for it to be proportionate to the membership of the local authority. I would not like to do that to a member who might not want to participate, which would be the logical conclusion of the other wording. That was why I did not table such an amendment. The sensible approach is to say that the Minister would wish to have proper gender representation and that he can provide for it through regulations at another stage.

The legislation we agreed last year to introduce gender quotas for general elections was incredibly progressive, on which I commend the Government. It took leadership to do it and it has the potential to make a big difference if the parties co-operate with it properly. The same should be done for local elections, which would be a better way to address this issue. If we then had proper representation of women among local authority elected members we would have the pool from which to pick members of ETBs.

The amendment is very well worded. It achieves the purpose I wanted it to achieve in a sensible way.