Ireland has one of the lowest rates of participation of women in politics in the developed world. The 31st Dáil is over 80% male. This imbalance of representation places Ireland 23rd out of the EU 27 Members States for female representation in parliament. Only Cyprus, Romania, Hungary and Malta are below us in this league table.  One party, Fianna Fáil, has no female TDs. The Programme for Government says it will tie political funding to the number of female candidates on the ballot paper. Internationally it has been shown that the best way to increase the number of women in parliament is to introduce temporary gender quotas. This would mean that parties would need to ensure that certain percentages (often about 30%) of the candidates on their ticket are female. This would give voters the freedom to choose whether to vote for women or indeed a man.

For

• Ireland has international obligations to adopt positive action measures to achieve better representation levels
• It is undemocratic to have 50% of the population under represented
• Currently, voters in many Irish constituencies face a ballot paper with no female candidate from any major party

Against

• Women who are in politics argue they got there on their own merits and that introducing quotas, even limited to the ballot paper and not the parliament, will devalue their own position.
• There are structural reason why there are few women who want to go into politics such as unsocial hours and demands of family life.  
• The gender balance of TDs is unimportant; it is what they do in the Dáil that counts.
• Gender quotas would be difficult to implement with our PR-STV electoral systems.