Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and salute all of my colleagues. I am very proud to be part of the Vótáil 100 committee with Senator McFadden and the chair, Senator Bacik. In the couple of minutes available to me I want to reflect on those women, and some men, who were involved in the suffrage movement and highlight some of their qualities, of which I will highlight four.

They were persistent. The achievement in terms of the hard-fought winning of the right to vote in 1918 was not a moment but part of a long movement, which was spearheaded in 1898 when women were given the power to run in the local election, and 100 women put themselves forward. It was achieved by the women's franchise leagues, which took place across the country. I refer to women who mobilised within the Irish Women Workers' Union, for example, and who played a key role in the lockout in 1913. I refer to women who were involved in the Rising in 1916. Many of those are the same activists who followed through on this issue. A partial right to vote for women over 30 was won in 1918 but women, and the suffragette movement, stayed with it and continued to demand the right to vote. In 1922, the new Irish State granted an equal right to vote to women and men over 21, six years ahead of the United Kingdom. That is something we can be proud of as well, and I am sure we will commemorate that.

The women were diverse. Quakers, Presbyterians, Catholics and Protestants from all kinds of class and background were involved in the suffrage movement. They were also involved in many other political movements, in socialism, passivism - the anti-war and anti-conscription movement was strongly led by women - and in the battle for women workers' rights. That was the diversity, and they continued to battle and contribute in a diverse set of ways as Irish society progressed.

I support the calls to name the new children's hospital after Dr. Kathleen Lynn. My colleague, Mary Strangman, recently launched the plaque to commemorate her.