INDEPENDENT SENATOR Katherine Zappone has criticised Government inaction on gay marriage and questioned if incoming gender quotas in the next general election would merely provide “tokenistic” opportunities for women candidates.
Prof Zappone, who said she had married her “life partner and spouse” Ann Louise Gilligan in Canada, was addressing the Parnell Summer School yesterday.
She told the gathering how she had taken part in a march in support of gay marriage in Dublin last Sunday. “It was both an emotional and exhilarating experience . . . wondering why should it take so long in 21st century Ireland for the law to recognise my human right to be free to marry the person I have chosen to love, forever?”
Prof Zappone said she also wondered “what it takes to bring about such significant social change in our parliamentary democracy”.
Equality was not possible without “the freedom to be one’s self” and that civil, political, social, economic and cultural human rights were not protected unless people were free and equal.
Referring to the United Nation’s forthcoming review of the State’s human rights record, Prof Zappone said she would not give Ireland full marks because she could identify “significant gaps in human rights protection”.
The Government had indicated its commitment to political reform and had begun to take some important steps towards “this significant objective”, Prof Zappone said. She described as “a step forward” the Government’s plan to implement legislation involving a 30 per cent gender quota for general election candidates, or else face severe financial penalties.
State funding for parties will be cut by half unless at least 30 per cent of the candidates they put forward are women.
“This is, no doubt, a step forward, but will it put a major dent in the deeply embedded patriarchal social structures existing in Ireland today, and how will the Government ensure that the 30 per cent target translates into meaningful rather than tokenistic opportunities and that the necessary range of supports accompany legislative change?”
Prof Zappone said the quotas should also apply to local government elections and be implemented in time for the 2014 poll.
She also called for the facilitation of greater political participation of people from minority social backgrounds. “How many coloured faces do we see in the Oireachtas? Compare that figure with how many we see in the classrooms throughout Ireland today.”
On October 6th, the Minister for Justice Alan Shatter will lead an Irish delegation to Geneva, where he will present a report to the UN Human Rights Council. Council members will then make recommendations to Ireland to improve its human rights record.
Earlier this week president of the Irish Human Rights Commission Dr Maurice Manning also speaking at the summer school, predicted Ireland would “do well” in the UN’s review.
