FF to vote on quotas for women delegates

Fianna Fáil has said that proposals for mandatory quotas on women in the party will be passed at the party's ardfheis in Killarney…

Fianna Fáil has said that proposals for mandatory quotas on women in the party will be passed at the party's ardfheis in Killarney, Co Kerry, this weekend, amid speculation that it may not receive the required support.

One third of delegates at conventions to select candidates will have to be women in future.

Gender equality will be a major theme at the ardfheis, where a gender quota will be applied in a party election for the first time as 10 of the 20 people being elected to the national executive will have to be women.

The party is also proposing significant changes to its disciplinary rules which will enable the general secretary to summarily suspend a party member pending a full investigation, if there is evidence of wrongdoing.

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The party has come in for criticism in recent years for its slowness in reacting to allegations of impropriety by members, on the basis that it had to follow procedures. Minister for Education Mary Hanafin also acknowledged that there had been widespread multiple voting at ardfheiseanna in the past, but said procedures had been tightened up.

She added that multiple voting had been occurring "as long as I've been going to ardfheiseanna, which is a long time.

"It's not a legal business, so it's not as if people were breaking the law or anything."

Party general secretary Seán Dorgan said delegates will be required to produce photographic identification before voting this weekend, and that all parties had similar problems in internal elections.

Mr Dorgan rejected suggestions that the party's proposals on gender balance would face difficulty in being passed.

Ms Hanafin said she hoped the new rules would encourage more women to stand for the party.

Fianna Fáil is also expected to pass a motion of "best wishes" to former taoiseach Charlie Haughey, a motion that Ms Hanafin said was "unusual" but "valid", given Mr Haughey's recent 80th birthday and illness.