Political World
Gender quota triggers new battle of the sexes
World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com
Gendermander – not the tastiest portmanteau word ever…but we all know what it means. Fine Gael courted some controversy when it imposed gender quotas in a number of constituencies earlier this year – in Dublin West, Dublin Bay North and Dun Laoghaire.
But it’s been nothing like Fianna Fáil which has gone about the gender quota business with the ruthlessness last seen when Mayo saw off Sligo in the Connacht Final in July.
It all stems from “Big” Phil Hogan’s ambitious, well-meaning but ill-thought out reform plans for national and local government.
On the local side, the jury is still out on his decision to abolish town councils and to merge a number of local authorities.
On the electoral side, he was responsible for cutting the number of Dáil seats from 166 to 158, and cutting the number of constituencies from 43 to 40.
I am completely with him on both decisions. Pro-rata we have far too many parliamentarians and it takes a strong personality to see through a decision that works against the interests of politicians.
As a Fine Gael TD Alice Glenn once said, asking politicians to reduce the number of Dáil Deputies is like asking a turkey to vote for Christmas.
The problem with the whole approach is the carve-up made by the Constituency Commission. It is a tough job trying to keep the number of voters per TD even while still respecting county borders.
But some of the “solutions”, such as those in South Dublin as well as in Galway/Roscommon/Mayo defied logic. The Sligo-Leitrim constituency taking in parts of four counties is also a bit of a smorgasbord.
I think, in the short term, the biggest controversy that has emerged from Hogan’s electoral plans is his decision to introduce gender quotas for candidates.
If women don’t comprise at least 30 per cent of a party’s candidate, it means they will lose a considerable chunk of their State money.
Until now the under-representation of women in our Dáíl has been just short of a scandal and the situation need to be address.
But looking for 30 per cent from the off was a tall order and was sure to post huge difficulties for parties. Some argued with Hogan that it should be 20 per cent but he is said to have described that as tokenism.
If you are a man who is interested in a career in politics and have been working towards it for years, it must leave a bitter taste in the mouth if you are deprived of the opportunity not by your party members but by a committee.
The problem for the two traditional parties is that most of their incumbents are men. The vast majority of Fine Gael TDs are men and most will be defending their seats in the general election.
The upshot of that is that any aspiring young (or not so young) pretender will find the following situation spelled out by party headquarters: “There will be two candidates and one of them must be a woman.”
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
Academically, politics is described as a science. But in the real world, it’s more of an art – and one of the big decisions a Government has to make is to decide when to call an election.
Will they see out the full term, or will they go early – either to mitigate the damage they will ship, or to secure a victory before things go awry, or the economy takes a dip, or some kind of controversy erupts?
Timing is everything.
And there’s a bit of art to that – not to mention a lot of luck. If you call it early and win big, you’re a genius. If you call it early and lose, you are the political version of the village fool.
Charlie Haughey was a poor judge of the public mood. Twice he called snap elections and on both occasions they backfired. Haughey succeeded Jack Lynch as Taoiseach in late 1979 and did not – technically – have his own mandate. He tried to remedy that by calling an election in 1981. But it recoiled. Ray MacSharry warned him not to hold it during the H Block hunger strikes when republican prisoners were dying each day. He did not listen to the advice and found himself out of office.
After his return to power in 1987, Haughey tired of presiding over a minority government that kept on losing votes in the Oireachtas (the opposition won nine private members motions).
So he called a snap general election and it backfired. Fianna Fáil lost seats and had to broker a coalition deal with the Progressive Democrats and his long-standing political adversary Dessie O’Malley.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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World of Politics with Harry McGee
I was cycling down Mount Street in Dublin on Tuesday. It’s a wide esplanade that links the Grand Canal with Merrion Square. The street is a mixture of fine Georgian buildings and modern office blocks.
About half-way down is the office of the International Protection Office, which deals with asylum seekers who have arrived in the country.
Needless to say, the office has been overwhelmed in the past year. Besides an estimated 80,000 refugees who have arrived from Ukraine, there have been about 20,000 people from other parts of the world who have arrived into Dublin (mostly) claiming asylum.
The numbers peaked around Christmas, but they have been falling a little. In January, more than 1,300 people arrived seeking asylum but the numbers fell back to 831 and 858, in February and March respectively.
They are still huge numbers in a historical context.
So back to my cycle on Tuesday. I knew that some asylum seekers were camping outside the International Protection Office, but I was taken aback by how many. There were six tents lined up on the pavement directly outside. Then on the ramp that led down to the basement carpark on the side of the building, there were about another 20 tents.
It looked like what it was, a refugee camp in the middle of Dublin’s business district. If you pan out from Mount Street, you will find tents here and there in nearby streets and alleys. There were a good few tents in an alleyway off Sandwith Street about 500 metres away.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
God that was a dramatic and historic weekend in England, wasn’t it? So much excitement, so much change, so much hype, so much out with the old and in with the new, and what looks like the coronation of a new leader. Yes, the local elections in Britain were something else weren’t they!
Apologies for not going on about King Charles III but the contract I signed when I became a lifelong republican forbids me to discuss the topic!
I know the British local elections sound a bit boring by comparison, but the results were stunning.
The Conservatives lost nearly 1,000 seats, the British Labour Party gained almost 500 and both the Lib Dems (with 350 gains) and the Greens (gaining over 200) also had amazing days at the polls.
It was Labour’s best day since 2002 but its victory was only partial. The Greens and the Lib Dems actually made gains at the expense of Labour in more affluent areas, and in parts of Britain where there were high numbers of graduates.
It was in the Red Wall constituencies in the North of England where the Labour recovery was strongest. These are working class constituencies with pockets of deprivation where people voted for the Labour Party forever. But all of those constituencies voted for Brexit and then voted for the Tories in the next general election. Labour is now winning back some of those votes.
Local elections are classified as second-tier elections which essentially means – from a national perspective – they are not life-or-death affairs, and not everything turns on them. Of course, it’s really important to have good local representation. But they are not an amazing weather vane for who rules the country.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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