Gender Quotas needed for local elections

Labour Spokesperson on Equality, Cllr. Deirdre Kingston is calling on government to link general election target to local elections.
Commenting today, Cllr. Kingston said:

“Orla O’Connor’s op-ed today serves as a timely reminder of the gender inequality which exists in the candidate selection processes of political parties. Thanks to the work of Labour in government, gender quotas have been a success in Ireland at General Election level.

“Parties in the next general election must again ensure they run at least 30% female candidates and this will increase to 40% after 2023. The last election saw a record 22% of the Dáil made up of women. I will be running in the next election and hope to contribute to increasing that percentage.

“It makes sense that the most likely General Election candidates are those who have previous local election experience. To assist parties to deliver on the set targets, more women must be selected at a local level.

“At our party Conference in 2016, the Labour Party committed to a target of 40% female candidates in the 2019 local elections. Disappointingly, this is is not a commitment which has been made by other, larger parties.