Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I too commend the Vótáil 100 committee under the chairmanship of Senator Bacik. We had a very successful year and it was great that the committee crossed parties and everybody made a contribution. I also commend the individuals and the organisations throughout the country and beyond who organised events to mark the anniversary of 100 years since women got the vote, the suffrage movement, Countess Markievicz and the 1918 elections.

Last Saturday was a poignant and memorable day as our Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle was held at Lissadell House, the home of Constance Markievicz and Eva Gore Booth. Countess Markievicz was a Sinn Féin Member of Parliament, MP, who, like the other 72 Sinn Féin MPs elected at the time, refused to take her seat in Westminster. The next woman MP to be elected was Sinn Féin's Michelle Gildernew in Fermanagh South Tyrone in 2001. They were among the women and men who came together from every class, creed and background and from rural communities, the slums of Dublin city and everywhere in between. These women rejected the confines of class and privilege to join the combination of the national women's movement and the labour movement declaring that they stood for the Republic.

The campaign for women's suffrage had started years earlier and women refused to participate in the 1911 census on the basis that if women do not count, they did not want to be counted. We should remember Winifred Kearney who stood in East Belfast. She was a socialist, trade unionist, feminist and republican. I commend the 1916 relatives association and National Graves Association on the wonderful tribute they organised in Milltown Cemetery earlier this year. I also commend Deirdre Hargey, the Lord Mayor of Belfast, for the portrait unveiling last month. Dr. Kathleen Lynn, a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, was another revolutionary, patriot, suffragette and proud Mayo woman. She gave her entire life to health care. I ask that all Members of this House join the campaign to name the national children's hospital after Dr. Kathleen Lynn. The aim of these women was the same as that of Wolfe Tone, to break the connection with England and to assert the independence of our country. Their story is one of determination, independence, idealism and self-sacrifice in pursuit of the freedom of the Irish people. We continue to be inspired by them today as we continue the struggle for an Ireland based on equality, freedom, peace and prosperity.

A century on, it is timely to reflect on the progress which has been made in breaking the glass ceiling. While these were the most unmanageable of revolutionaries, they forged the road on which we still have far to go. Women are still something of a novelty in political life. There are things we need to do, including closing the gender gap, creating lives free from violence, providing affordable childcare, ending economic inequality and bringing more women into political life. There can be no liberation without women's liberation so the struggle for equality will continue.