To be or not to be ... A woman TD

AROUND the country, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn had a grace period of- oh - maybe a day or so, before the backlash kicked in. In Leinster House, it was more like an hour. "That's one less rip we'll have to deal with," said a senior party colleague, neatly encapsulating the case for feminism.

Evidently, the media we're hardly the worst of her torments even it, to begin with, it was made to look like that. The resignation statement, issued in time for Morning Ireland on Monday, attributed blame squarely: she was going because of media intrusiveness, she said, specifically that relating to the expulsion of her 17-year-old son from boarding school. She had been distraught about it, added Bertie Ahern.

Colleagues and decent people everywhere rose on cue to revile the media, to eulogise her and pour balm on her wounded soul. The treatment was effective. Within hours, she was posing happily with her husband, having welcomed the media into her home; chose that day to do the shopping in a major supermarket, swapping banter with the inevitable media posse; and - irony of ironies - dropping hints that she might even throw her lot in with the same scummy media band by pursuing a new career in journalism.

Hardly any wonder then that by Tuesday, the eulogies were losing their gloss and the old public cynicism about politicians had begun to re-assert itself. Radio callers were as blunt as she had been. Surely she had made things worse for her son by issuing such a statement? His name, previously little more than fodder for a gossip column, was now on the lips of the nation because of it, they asserted; surely she, a shrewd, media-wise woman, could have foreseen that?

They heard about the poll which suggested that she could lose her seat in the next election. They noted a clear pattern of political disillusionment over several years and they concluded that while the media might have been a potent factor in her decision, it was by no means the only one. The Star ransacked her novel for clues to her thinking and was rewarded with an appropriately cynical quote from Dervla, the political heroine: "Maybe you're not as dumb as I thought," she says to a rival TD, "maybe you want to get out of politics covered in sympathy."

By Wednesday, when she gave an interview to TnaG, she admitted that her decision was not, after all, rooted solely in the sins of the media: "I am 22 years in politics, one year ahead of my father," she said. I'm 46 years old and it's time for me to do something else with my life." And though she didn't say it, that new career in journalism was already taking shape; she was already being pursued by several publications, alert to her rich potential as a columnist. But back in the stuffy rabbit warrens of Leinster House, some colleagues sighed over a missed opportunity.

"Wasn't it an awful pity," said one, "that she didn't just say `look, I'm just fed up with the whole bloody shooting match'? That might have been a useful thing to do, got some sort of debate going."

So it might. Every man and woman who enters politics - especially rural politics - has to be aware that the family comes too, unfair as it is. Spouses, sons and daughters are often pressed into hand-holding, tea-making, fund-raising, funeral-attending, speechmaking, door-opening, phone-answering, letter-writing guardians of those precious No 1 votes. In rural constituencies particularly, a politician's home is often the voters' castle, with callers - as Terry Prone memorably recalled after one brief interlude in a politician's home - literally climbing in the windows even during mealtimes. One political wife this week referred to calls on recent Sunday mornings, laced with sly references to this being election year when it appeared that "the boss" wasn't breaking his neck to get to the phone.

One of Maire Geoghegan-Quinn's last deeds as Health spokeswoman was to criticise the picket on Michael Noonan's home by members of Youth Defence. But such public intrusion is hardly new or surprising. Sixteen years ago when she worked in Industry and Commerce, her home was picketed by members of her own party during factory closures. Her seven-year-old son, as she described it in Una Claffey's book, felt it keenly: "Why do they all hate you, Mom?" he asked her. Eight years later, during the vicious rod licence controversy, her children got abusive phone calls, her telephone line was cut and her eldest son was verbally abused in front of his schoolfriends by the partner of a leading anti-licence campaigner.

Many politicians and their children have similar stories to tell. Cork TD Kathleen Lynch, a recent arrival in the Dail, recalls how her daughter, a schoolgirl on a team outing to Dublin, was forced to listen to an old man's diatribe - "horrendous names" included - against her mother. Another child of hers also felt the sting of publicity-by-association when he forgot to drop his car tax and insurance documents into the Garda station and suddenly became "a major news item" in the local paper. "Of course, what he did wasn't right," she says, "but it wasn't all that wrong either." And she was just a county councillor at the time.

But few TDs have had to brace themselves for the headline, "TD's Son Jailed" as Donegal deputy, Jim McDaid - appointed to the shadow front bench this week has had to do. Three years ago in London, his son celebrated his 19th birthday with unaccustomed quantities of scrumpy cider and in a dizzy prank, made two hoax bomb calls from a public phone box. The fall-out was horrendous.

The young man was remanded in custody and kept in 23-hour confinement for three weeks pending the court case. Meanwhile, his father felt virtually paralysed, unable to tell anyone, not even his closest friends. When the nightmarish bubble of suspense finally burst and the first media call "Do you have a son called Jason?" was dealt with, he wondered if he should resign. But his trouble was not so much the media reporting as the political innuendo; a British newspaper was in touch, for example, attempting to set up a connection between Jason's electronics course and more sinister activities.

But his party leaders sympathised and were philosophical; that's politics, they said. "And the media," says Jim McDaid in spite of the "TD's Son Jailed"' headlines, "were absolutely fantastic, unbelievably sympathetic. Their, attitude was very much there but for the grace of God The inevitable result of media competition, he says, is a lowering of standards" in some media elements but he too has learned to be philosophical.

Could it be that female TDs simply see things differently? Are the pressures different for them? Do they feel the blow more keenly when things go wrong at home?

"I know what they're all thinking now about Maire Geoghegan-Quinn," said Kathleen Lynch grimly, on Thursday. "They're thinking that's women for you'." Her suspicion can hardly be dismissed in a week when a Circuit Court judge is quoted as telling a female plaintiff that "breaking down and crying when she went home was not unusual in the feminine temperament".

Ms Lynch strongly identifies with Maire Geoghegan-Quinn's stated reason for resigning. "I have some idea how she felt and that's why I will not go into this self-justification thing that others are doing. Just because you're a politician doesn't mean you're less of a mother - but you're always sure that when you do the right thing, you won't be believed or they'll say you're doing it for some selfish vain, self-fulfilling reason. In lots of ways, women TDs are held up as flag-bearers for women but then when you do something that's in keeping with your nature and gender, you're letting the side down."

As for the allegations that she has made things worse for her son: "If that's the case, it means you can't stand up for your family" says Theresa Ahearn, "because everything in the media is yesterday's news - and remember for her, it's the end."

FRANCES Fitzgerald perceives a reluctance within Leinster House to believe "that it is legitimate to move on from the system - and an anger at those who turn their backs on it. I think a kind of defensiveness is creeping in..."

But the old guilt complex, as Kathleen Lynch says, never quite lets go. "Women feel guilty about everything - about the house if it isn't clean, about their children, their father, their mother, everything . . ." It is probably no coincidence that of the handful of rural women TDs in Leinster House - around half - happen to be unmarried or childless.

A glimpse at the "system" explains why. Take Breeda Moynihan-Cronin, a Labour TD whose constituency includes the Ring of Kerry. On Tuesday morning, she leaves for the four-and-a-half-hour drive to the Dail, armed with a bag full of constituency files and queries. The days are packed with committee and parliamentary meetings, speechmaking or preparation, taking calls, meeting people or organising election literature (as she was doing this week); the evenings with correspondence and constituency work stretching through to 10 or 11 p.m.

On Thursday, she leaves for home at around 4.30 p.m. and once in Kerry, may have to drive another 30 miles to a branch meeting, finally getting home at around midnight. Friday is the "big clinic day" which begins in the office at 8 a.m., dealing with files brought back from Dublin, meeting with callers. There could be an Enterprise Board meeting 20 miles away in Tralee, followed by a clinic in Dingle about an hour and a quarter away; leave there at 2 p.m. for Castlegregory about 20 miles away; hope to arrive in Camp another 20 miles away at 4.30 p.m.. followed by Annascaul at 6 p.m. Complete the Ring. drive the hour and a quarter back to Killarney and get home around 8 p.m.

Saturday after she catches up on the washing and the shopping - is main clinic day in her home town of Killarney. That finishes at lunchtime. The afternoon is reserved for calling on people - such as someone recently widowed or an elderly person who doesn't like using the phone. After that, there could be a removal, even two or three.

Sunday is time out but she regularly spends two or three hours in the office on Sunday putting stuff on the dictaphone.

On Monday, there are County Council meetings, VEC meetings, more clinics on the Cork border 40 miles away, before she gets home at around 9.30 p.m. "And that's when I pack the bag for Dublin the next morning..."

The system is self-evidently crazy, self-driven, self-perpetuating. There isn't much, that can be done about the weekly treks to the Dail, though Theresa Ahearn cannot understand why, for example, Dail sittings are not synchronised with school terms, nor can Kathleen Lynch figure out why Tuesday sittings have to start as late as 2.30 p.m. To suit the barristers, ventured someone?

Leinster House, they all say, is ridiculously detached from family life but the macho environment ensures that men - such as Eoin Ryan or Dan Neville -who support change have to pull back from time to time because they will be seen as "slightly suspect" while "women will be seen as cry-babies". The long-mooted creche has again this week been put on the long finger for, practical reasons - though given the hours operated by commercial creches, it's hardly a solution either. The concept of a family room has been mooted too: "But when do TDs have time for families?" asks Kathleen Lynch.

"We have no family life. None," says Breeda Moynihan-Cronin. Many of the rural women talk wistfully about their urban counterparts who can "nip off home to help a child with homework, see a child through exams or soothe one who is sick". The alternative for most of them is a lonely room with a television for company. "For a man, it's second nature to drop into a bar, their social lives are set up," says Kathleen Lynch. "If we started hanging around bars, what would they say about us?"

As for the rest of the wretched grind, they bring it upon themselves and they know it. "You're killed working, running to every dog-fight," says Donegal TD Mary Coughlan. "I thought when a few young people began to get in to the Dail that things might change a little but they're afraid. The only way would be to change the complete political system, get rid of the multi-seat constituencies and then people would have to accept that TDs are not councillors but national politicians."

Meanwhile, they continue to run themselves ragged, struggling to out-do all comers in the funeral / clinic / clientelism stakes. Says Frances Fitzgerald, a Dublin TD and no shrinking violet: "I know that life for a Dublin TD is completely different. I cannot imagine being a TD in Cork or Galway and having three children."

Mary Wallace, another trenchant spokeswoman for women's rights and better Dail facilities, is lucky enough to get home at night to her Meath constituency and her 16-month-old son, but still talks of 16-hour days, nightly branch meetings and a six-day week. "God help the woman politician who has yet to meet the man in her life and has to worry whether he'll love the world he finds himself in.

And those who find gaps in that merry-go-round for a longer view confess to a fierce frustration with a fragmented system that seems tailor-made for delay and obfuscation "What really frustrates me," says Theresa Ahearn, "is trying to get something done. I came in at 9 a.m. on Wednesday morning and spent until 10.15 making phone calls and in all that time, could only talk to one of the people I was looking for Frances Fitzgerald talks about the different values system that operates within Leinster House, one "based on networks, on who's in and who's out, and not necessarily about performance but about other criteria".

The strange thing is that every one of these women will be clinging to those seats with their teeth when the time comes, whether because they feel they owe it to the voters "who left their fireside to give them a No 1" and/or because they love it and the addiction is there. But it's just as likely to be because many of them genuinely do see themselves as flag-bearers for a new generation. They will not be seen to have thrown in the towel: "All we ever do in life is make life better for our children," says Kathleen Lynch. "This is about women being seen in positions they were never seen in before and" it becoming commonplace."