Madam, – The current and past elections to the Seanad on the university panels shed some interesting light on the obstacles, if any, to the desire of many that more women should be in politics.
Three seats are now being filled on the NUI panel. Anybody eligible to contest a Dáil election can be a candidate. It is not necessary to be a graduate of one of the constituent colleges of the National University of Ireland. No fee is payable. Every candidate gets a free mailshot to each of the circa 100,000 voters; they only have to pay for the printing of their piece of election literature. There are no political party hoops to jump and no time-serving as a “ward heeler” is required. In the three elections – in years 2002, 2007, and 2011 – there were 16, 24 and 27 candidates, respectively; of these, there were three, seven and now only four, women seeking election.
This suggests that no amount of proactive, quota or other systems at the pre-nomination stage will bring about the mystical egalitarian objective sought by so many.
Personally, I am not bothered about the gender of my public representatives; I mainly want them moral, competent and not freeloaders. As for this year’s NUI candidates, I am more uncomfortable that so few of them are or were employed in unsheltered areas, and that so many of them are from one profession, whose members enjoy sheltered, public-sector employment. – Yours, etc,