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THERE ARE NOW more women in the lower house of our national parliament than ever before.
In all, 35 women were elected to Dáil Éireann over the weekend – taking 22.3% of the seats being contested, and now composing 22.2% of all deputies.
That’s a whopping 40% increase from the previous record of 25 women elected in 2011, composing 15% of Dáil Éireann at the time.
Many observers have pointed to this rise as being directly attributable to the introduction of gender quotas, which allow for a party’s state funding to be cut by half unless 30% of their general election candidates are women (and 30% are men).
However, a closer analysis of the numbers suggests this conclusion might be a bit of an oversimplification, and shows that – despite a massive increase in female candidates – parties subject to gender quotas only elected four extra women.
First, an overview.
There were 35 women elected to the Dáil this year - 40% more than 2011, and the highest in Irish history.
Remarkably, 19 of the women elected this weekend are entering the Dáil for the first time, and 14 were first-time candidates.
Two women decided not to contest (Olivia Mitchell and Sandra McLellan), and seven lost their seats: Áine Collins, Joanna Tuffy, Ann Phelan, Lucinda Creighton, Michelle Mulherin, Ciara Conway and Anne Ferris.
Gabrielle McFadden, who replaced her late sister Nicky in a by-election in 2014, also lost her seat.
With her re-election, the Social Democrats’ Róisín Shortall becomes the longest continuously-serving woman in the new Dáil, having won every election since 1992.
In November, she will surpass former Tánaiste Mary Coughlan and become the second-longest serving female TD in history, after Mary Harney, who held her seat from 1981 until 2011.
There have also been several major breakthroughs and interesting developments across the country, in this election.
In particular, there has been something of a revolution in Galway.
Up until this weekend, only two women had ever represented the county – Fianna Fáil’s Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, who held a seat in Galway West from 1975-1997, and Fine Gael’s Brigid Hogan-Higgins, who sat in various Galway constituencies from 1957-1977.
This election added three.
This map shows how things have changed since five years ago.
Although female representation has faded in certain areas – most notably Cork – it has extended in the West.
In all, 25 of 40 constituencies (62.5%) now have at least one female representative in the national parliament, as opposed to 22 of 43 (51%) in 2011.
However, the increased number of female TDs is mainly accounted for by intensified representation elsewhere, with several constituencies doubling their number of female TDs.
One constituency – Dublin South-Central – now has three female TDs out of four: Catherine Byrne, Joan Collins and Bríd Smith.
The new Dáil still ranks 17th out of 27 EU member states, when it comes to female representation in the main house of parliament, according to our analysis of figures from the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and we rank 75th in the world.
Before last weekend, however, we ranked 22nd in the EU and 111th in the world.
Did gender quotas achieve this?
This will be one of the main questions emerging from Election 2016, and will no doubt be studied in great detail over the lifetime of the 32nd Dáil.
However, there are a few observations we can make at this stage.
Of the 551 candidates at this election, 163 were women, a ratio of 29.6%, well up from 2011, when 86 of 566 (15.1%) were women.
But while the number of female candidates and TDs increased significantly, successful women only made up 21% of the 163 female candidates this year, as opposed to 29% (25 of 86 candidates) taking a seat in 2011.
That year, female candidates had almost the exact same success rate as their male counterparts.
This suggests that, as was predicted, it will likely take one or two more election cycles for the massively expanded female candidate base to translate into massively increased Dáil representation.
This will be especially true if women selected to run in 2016 retain their local council positions, and are chosen by party conventions to run again in the next general election, when voters will only be more familiar with them and their achievements.
In the context of gender quotas, the level of female success from each party will no doubt be closely scrutinised in the coming weeks.
By far the most striking phenomenon, in that respect, was the performance of Fianna Fáil, who went from electing no women whatsoever in 2011, to electing 6.
Notably, Fine Gael did not elect any more women this time, although the reduction of their seat total from 76 to around 50 means women will make up a higher proportion of their TDs.
Sinn Féin tripled their female contingent in the Dáil, from two to six.
However, not every party or grouping was subject to gender quotas, so we have to drill even deeper to see what their effect might have been.
Let’s look at the parties who receive state funding, and so were subject to the new gender quota rules – Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Labour, Sinn Féin, and AAA/PBP.
In 2011, these parties had 23 women elected to the Dáil, between them.
In 2016, that number is 27 – so only four more female TDs were elected by parties subject to gender quotas.
However, there were four defections between 2011 and 2016, which lowered the main parties’ base of female incumbents.
Róisín Shortall left Labour for the Social Democrats, Clare Daly left the Socialist Party and thus the AAA/PBP umbrella, Joan Collins left PBP, and Lucinda Creighton left Fine Gael.
Creighton lost her seat though, so the effect of her defection from Fine Gael is somewhat moot, in terms of distribution of female TDs between parties subject to gender quotas, and those not subject to them.
Of the 10 extra women elected in 2016, Independents added three, the Social Democrats added two, and one came from the Green Party.
Three female TDs were elected through by-elections, for which gender quotas didn’t apply – Helen McEntee for Fine Gael in 2013, Ruth Coppinger for AAA/PBP in 2014, and Gabrielle McFadden for Fine Gael in 2014.
McFadden lost her seat over the weekend.
It has been argued that the number of women elected this year would have been even higher, were it not for the overall collapse of Labour (who lost five female TDs), and the retirements of Sandra McLellan and Olivia Mitchell.
However, the same logic must also be applied to the 2011 general election, when 6 female TDs decided not to contest, and amid the devastation of Fianna Fáil, 8 women from the governing parties lost their seats.
By a similar rationale, this contributed to the relatively low base from which female representation has increased since 2011.
In any event, we can only fully analyse the actual trends, rather than counter-factuals.
This minimal increase in female TDs among the parties subject to gender quotas should also be viewed in light of the fact that the number of their female candidates grew significantly.
While the number of their candidates grew by 60% from 58 to 93, the number of their TDs only grew by 16%, from 23 to 27, as shown in the chart above.
First-timers
It would be difficult (and unfair) to assess whether a given female candidate was selected by the party simply in order to meet overall gender quotas.
There were several instances of messy selection conventions, female candidates added to constituency tickets at the last minute, lawsuits, and a lot of outrage.
As a more neutral and objective proxy, however, we can measure the performance of women selected by the main parties for the first time.
This is particularly striking because the party had no female incumbents going into the election, and it had been suggested they might struggle most to reach the 30% required by the new legislation.
The overall 20% success rate for first-time female candidates compares to 32% among male first-time candidates.
So while overall, the number of female TDs shot up, this doesn’t necessarily mean gender quotas were entirely responsible.
Independents and parties not subject to gender quotas accounted for 7 out of 10 extra women in the Dáil.
But while the introduction of gender quotas only preceded a net gain of two TDs from the parties subject to them, this doesn’t tell the full story either.
There were three defections from the main parties, and an astonishing increase in the number of first-time female candidates elected, from 6 to 12.
This suggests that gender quotas absolutely had a role within the main parties.
In particular, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin appear to have been rewarded by the electorate for selecting young, new female candidates.
That trend could mean the process of choosing women for the next general election might not be as messy and fraught with resistance as it was this time.
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I’ve said many times, will keep saying it: corporations like Meta are NOT your friend in any way.
@Daniel Skelton: I don’t think anyone ever has thought of a corporation as their friend… When was the last time you went for a coffee with a corporation?
@Kev Barnes: True, but I consider ones like Meta to be the lowest of the low. You can’t get any lower than them.
@Kev Barnes: you’ve never seen someone scrolling of Facebook in a café?
@Daniel Skelton: good man Daniel does that mean other corporates are?
@Daniel Skelton: TikTok is even lower than meta is it has been created specially to make our youth dumber.
It should be 100% banned.
@mani mus: I have.. But that doesn’t make your phone your friend
@Kev Barnes: Our leaders do it all the time.
You should be over the age of 18 to own a smart phone. They are one of the greatest scourges to enter society and I’m not being over dramatic when I say that. They allow bullying of kids to continue at all times, they give kids incorrect perceptions of their image and create very harmful addictions.
It is frightening how many parents give kids as young as 6 or 7 unfiltered access to some of the worst aspects of society.
No access, no problem.
If you think your child needs a phone to contact you, then buy a non-smartphone.
But an entire ban would take peer pressure out of the equation.
Ban the sale of advertising on the internet and this problem will vanish.
All the social media companies depend on advertising and use addictive interfaces to drive up “engagement” and numbers so that they can charge more for advertising.
@Steve O’Hara-Smith: Good idea, would go further and ban data minning too.
@Thesaltyurchin: Harder to define but yes indeed.
You could probably add some adults to that as well.
@Jb Walshe: like you?
There should be a new poll…Do Irish judges attend Andrew Tate seminars? To give a man a clap on the back for attacking a women that he admitted to….the wheel is rolling backwards.
An outright ban is needed until 18 years of age. Also social media should not allow the posting of so called news links or any links of that matter. It used to be about photos, sharing of nights out and socialising and sharing memories.. Politics, Screwing with our children’s minds was not part of it.. or screwing with adults minds for that matter.
@Roman Walczak Sadlowski: Outright ban wont solve anything. The social media companies, specifically X, Meta and Snap need to ensure anonymous accounts are not possible. If you want a social media account you need to provide proof of identification. As soon as all these cowards online hiding behind their keyboard know there is attribution behind every one of their posts it will stop overnight. Literally within 24 hours harrassment, doxxing, bullying, far-right nonsense, fake news and video posts etc will cease.
Society is doing a bang up job of doing the damage already without social media. The current and next generation will have some mess to clean up from the damage thats been done and I dont evny them.
But not quite as much as the current government are.
It’s so sad to see a group of teenage friends together just looking at their phones….no messing about, talking, slagging or laughter. My teen years in the early 90s were spent talking with friends and others my age, about everything and nothing, getting bored, slagging each other off, arguing and making up again…walking for hours or sitting around.
No child under 13 needs a phone. As a parent it is hard, but you have to lay down the law and say
No. My 12 year old has no phone, as I have told him his friends all live in our estate, he can walk over to them if he needs to talk.
Just behind substance abuse
@Argus Romsworth: Reckon if you count the profits (lets no pretend that anything else matters here) that tech bros are making way more than the narcos.
Not a hope of any action here. Money and profit is what our society value, child/people’s welfare are only considered if it doesn’t affect the bottom line. Have you not scene all the betting companies concern for problem gambling . If your winning your account is restricted, if your losing, bet away.
They are very addictive. An addiction is only bad news.
@JP: Facebook was designed by psychologists to be addictive, that’s the main reason it crushed Bebo, MySpace etc.
Most of the most mentally unstable people i see on social media these days are 40+. The ones harrassing td’s and guards and librarians and such.
Least we forget, THIS is a social media space.
You can say ‘ban smartphones’ until you’re blue in the face – gen z (hope I got that right) life revolves around social platforms – I had an argument with a friend back in 2018 about the detrimental effects this behaviour would have as I had been reading articles on it – basically they stated that the young ones wouldn’t know how to adapt to social situations, that they wouldn’t be able to decipher facial expressions, body language.
It’s not just about the bullying aspect, it reaches far deeper. Images on social media are heavily filtered and, especially for girls, can make them feel insecure and lack confidence in comparison to what they see on screen.
It was hard enough for me growing up, I was bullied but it was in person, was dealt with, the end. Online is endless.
Stop bullying kids by dumping anxiety on them.
https://climatekids.nasa.gov/kids-guide-to-climate-change/
The June Solstice happens today, and the Green party, rather than run with experimental theorists who imagine climate is one thing as long-term weather, teaches students that Ireland has a maritime climate as one topic among many within the Earth science of climate.
I never mind those who try to throw their weight around in the comments as though this is a schoolyard. I need adults in the room and in the Journal.
@Gerald Kelleher: Nooooo! The winters coming
@Gerald Kelleher: they left out the elnino effect in the climate change guide.
@Gerald Kelleher: I really wish researchers in social science hadn’t started using the term “climate anxiety” when surveying young people. Psychologists don’t want that term used. The vast majority of young people and children who report concerns about climate change in these studies do not have anxiety. Anxiety is complicated and it is generally rooted in the child’s early childhood experiences and the attachment styles of those who care for them. You could stop telling children that carbon emissions trap radiation tomorrow and I doubt it would have any impact on the numbers of children being treated for anxiety. I don’t care about the models. There are many excellent reasons to clean up our act and pursue renewable energy resources that don’t require you to buy into global warming. Young people are rightfully concerned about how human actions are impacting our environment. They aren’t mad, we are polluting the planet at a rate that can’t possibly be good, we have volumes of hard evidence demonstrating the mounting negative consequences to humans (children in particular) and we should stop.
@Sill Scoundrel: At last, a reasonable person even if climate research covers many topics.
The environmental party should protect society from academics looking for funding while supplying hysteria.
I absolutely love social media
Not as big a threat as the scary wary pilots!
have your say