Sir, – While it is wonderful to note your enthusiasm for women's stories, past and present, in this week's Irish Times series, Women at Work, it is surely worth noting that those battles go on and on for women, even today.
Perhaps The Irish Times might also like to hail a victory for women brought about by using the mechanism of introducing amendments to proposed legislation to Seanad Éireann which happened earlier this year.
This small victory, detailed below, happened thanks to having a Senate chamber; that second chamber where proposed legislation is scrutinised and amended. The VECs are, as we know them, about to be morphed into a new being on July 1st next. From this year the old deliverer of our local techs will be replaced by education and training boards (ETBs). While the existing amended VEC Acts included the need for gender representation for councillors on VEC boards, a new broom at Department of Education and Science, saw fit to use the opportunity of new legislation to remove that requirement on the flimsiest of excuses that women can be difficult to find!
Thanks to the good offices of Senator Ivana Bacik and her colleagues in Seanad Éireann, the offending section was amended and now there will be a requirement to reflect the number of women and male councillors on local ETBs.
Given what I learnt and experienced when Minister for Education and the certainty that women are still being discriminated against in the quietest of our legislative corners, I intend to vote No in the coming referendum and Yes to gender politics for the foreseeable future. – Is mise,
NIAMH BHREATHNACH,
(Minister for Education 1993
-1997),
Anglesea Avenue,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.