If “Celtic Tiger” is the nickname chosen to describe the Irish economy, the most appropriate one for gender representation in Parliament could be “Celtic kitten”.
In Ireland, a country that in recent decades has become a symbol of rapid social and economic progress, of the 174 seats assigned in the national elections of November 29, only 44 were occupied by women, or just over 25 percent. And this despite Dublin having just strengthened the rules on gender quotas in view of the general elections.
According to an analysis reported by Bloomberg based on data from the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), although the situation is not much rosier elsewhere, this figure is lower than the average of 32 percent of European parliaments and significantly lower than the 37 percent than the Western European average.
A descending parable
Today Ireland is one of the richest nations in Europe, boasting one of the few budget surpluses on the continent thanks to the large number of multinationals based in the country, attracted by the very advantageous tax policies. However, this progress does not appear to have led to a significant improvement in women’s representation in politics and, indeed, has reversed some previous progress.
In the 1990s, Ireland was among the countries with the highest female political representation, even electing its first female president, Mary Robinson, in 1990. But in the early 2000s it began to lose ground compared to the rest of Europe .
Only starting in 2012 to seriously address the issue with the introduction of a mandatory quota of 30 percent candidates for political parties presenting lists in national elections. “There is a paradox with the progress we have made,” said Marie Sherlock, a newly elected Labor MP, referring to a gender equality law introduced in 2015 that she said would struggle to pass today. “There is a strong element of culture war that is playing out insistently in other countries, perhaps less so in Ireland, but we certainly feel it,” he added.
The paradox lies precisely in this slowdown in representation in parallel with the advancement of civil rights, with the legalization, for example, of same-sex marriage in 2016 and the repeal of the abortion ban in 2018. The situation is improving only slightly. The mandatory quota of female candidates was also recently increased to 40 percent for the most recent elections, translating into the highest percentage of MPs ever achieved in the Irish parliament, the Dail, which however still means that there were only seven MPs in more than in the 2020 elections.
The situation in Europe
Let’s remove any doubt: no European country has yet achieved 50 percent gender parity, although Iceland is the closest, with women currently holding 48 percent of the seats in its national parliament. Some of the European countries with the lowest proportion include Hungary, with 15 percent, and Romania, with 19 percent, according to the IPU’s global rankings. In Montecitorio, women represent 32.3 percent of the deputies, while in Palazzo Madama there is a slightly higher value: women represent 36.1 percent of the senators.
