In the area of female political representation, Ireland stands out as a particularly interesting case. The country exhibited very low levels of female Dáil Éireann (the lower chamber of the Irish parliament, or Oireachtas) membership after independence in 1922 and up until the 1970s. Table 1.1 indicates that though gains were subsequently made, female membership plateaued after 1992 (White, 2006), climbing to only 22.2 percent today a figure which is only just below the global average (IPU, 2017). And with respect it cabinet, it was not until 1992 that the number of women appointed to it rose above one for the first time. We should note that the present share of women in Dáil Éireann has resulted only from the imposition of a legislative gender quota which caused an almost seven point jump in female parliamentary representation. This quota measure will be discussed below.
This lack of progress in women’s representation is surprising since ostensibly Ireland has many factors that should prove favourable to women’s participation in political life. With respect to the cultural context which has been discussed above, McElroy and Marsh (2011) argue that this does not provide an adequate explanation of the low numbers of women in the Irish parliament. While it is true that we might expect predominantly Catholic countries, like Ireland, to have less egalitarian attitudes towards women’s activity in public life, Reynolds (1999) finds that the real split here is not between Catholic and other Christian denominations but between Christian and non-Christian ones; being a non- Christian country is negatively related to the share of women in parliament whereas the impact of Catholicism is indistinguishable from that of other Christian sects. Since there is substantial variation in the share of women in parliament across Christian countries, simply pointing to Ireland’s Catholic tradition (78.3 percent of people self-identified as Catholic in the 2016 Census, a figure which represents a steady decline since its peak at 94.9 percent in 1961 [CSO, 2017]) cannot constitute an adequate explanation for the Irish case. Ireland of course enjoys the high levels of economic development that have been linked by researchers to favourable outcomes for women in the political sphere (see Norris & Inglehart, 2005). Similarly, with respect to their presence in other non-domestic spheres, women are not poorly positioned. Women’s labour force participation has risen sharply since the 1960s; today women make up 44.14 percent of the total Irish labour force, only 1.73 percentage points behind the European Union average (World Bank, 2016). If cultural and socioeconomic explanations are inadequate, we must look elsewhere to explain the Irish situation.
Despite the presence of a directly elected president, the Irish system of government is parliamentary with the Taoiseach (prime minister) occupying a dominant role and the President of Ireland, despite possessing some discretionary powers, acting as a mainly symbolic figure (Gallagher, 2018a). The Irish Oireachtas is bicameral, consisting of an upper chamber, Seanad Éireann, in addition to the Dáil. The
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Table 1.1. Women elected to Dáil Éireann (1937-) Year of general election Number of women in Dáil Éireann Total number of TDs Percentage of women in Dáil Éireann 1937 2 138 1.4 1938 3 138 2.2 1943 3 138 2.2 1944 4 138 2.9 1948 5 147 3.4 1951 5 147 3.4 1954 5 147 3.4 1957 5 147 3.4 1961 3 144 2.1 1965 5 144 3.5 1969 3 143 2.1 1973 4 143 2.8 1977 6 148 4.1 1981 10 166 6.0 Feb. 1982 8 166 4.8 Nov. 1982 13 166 7.8 1987 14 166 8.4 1989 13 166 7.8 1992 20 166 12.0 1997 20 166 12.0 2002 22 166 13.3 2007 22 166 13.3 2011 25 166 15.1 2016 35 158 22.2 Source: electionsireland.org
33 Seanad is indirectly elected: out of the 60 Senators only six are elected by a subset of the public, three by the graduates of Trinity College Dublin and the three graduates of the universities composing the National University of Ireland. A further 11 Senators are Taoiseach’s nominees, with the remaining representatives drawn from five different vocational panels (e.g. the Agricultural Panel). While this chamber has much higher levels of female representation than its counterpart (currently 18 Senators are women [IPU, 2017]), chiefly due to gender diversity in the Taoiseach’s nominees, the powers of this body are extremely limited (Gallagher, 2018a) and for that reason, as well as for reasons of comparability with the literature described above, we will proceed by discussing Dáil Éireann only.
Seats are filled in the lower chamber of the Oireachtas by means of the STV (single transferrable vote) system which is candidate-centred; and it is here that we can discern an institutional feature that may impede women’s progress in political life. Farrell and Sinnott (2018) provide a detailed discussion of the procedure. Briefly, voters receive a ballot which lists the candidates in alphabetical order with their party identification, photograph, and self-reported occupation. They rank the candidates in order of preference, writing ‘1’ in the box opposite their first preference, ‘2’ in the box opposite their second preference and so on. Voters may rank as few or as many candidates as they wish. As a candidate- centred electoral system, under STV voters are free to select candidates from across parties, so a voter may give his or her first preference to an independent candidate, followed by a second preference for a Fine Gael candidate, a third preference for a Labour Party candidate and so on.
Seats are allocated based on a quota which is the number of votes that a candidate must receive in order to be elected. The quota is calculated by dividing the total number of valid ballots cast by the number of seats to be filled plus one. For example, at the 2014 local election in the Borris-In-Ossory- Mountmellick electoral area (part of Laois County Council) there were 6 seats to be filled. 12,048 valid votes cast in the electoral area. The quota to be reached in order to ensure election by a candidate is 1,722 and is therefore calculated in the following way:
12,048÷ (6 + 1)
If a candidate meets or exceeds the quota he or she is deemed to be elected. If an elected candidate receives more votes than the quota needed then this surplus is distributed to the other candidates according to the second preference indicated on the ballots. Where no candidate has a surplus the candidate that has received the fewest votes is eliminated and his or her votes are redistributed according to the second preference indicated on the ballot. This process of redistribution of surplus votes and of the votes of eliminated candidates continues until all of the seats have been filled.
34 This procedure theoretically provides voters with the opportunity to discriminate against women on the ballot if they so choose. However, the 40 multi-member districts consisting of between three and five seats (there are currently 158 seats in the Dáil, though one is automatically filled by the outgoing Ceann Comhairle or speaker of the house) also provide parties with the incentive to show diversity in their tickets in order to attract voters. The trend has been to increase the district magnitude (McGing, 2013), something which only strengthens these incentives and is good news for women since they tend to do better where the district magnitude is higher (Engstrom, 1987). More important perhaps is the fact that STV provides candidates with a strong incentive to cultivate a personal vote, and for parties to continually select candidates who are big vote-getters for the party. The issue then is the incumbency advantage that this system confers (Galligan, 1993) which can prevent women from being selected when they have not previously served in office. Despite the issues associated with STV’s incentives for candidates to cultivate a personal vote, White (2006) concludes that this system is better for women running in Ireland than a majoritarian system would be.
At a lower level of Norris’ nested model of legislative recruitment is variation with respect to parties. As we would expect, the PR-STV system produces several political parties, some of which are small and some of which are on the left of the political spectrum. Irish politics has been dominated by two political parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, which have alternated power since the early days of the Irish Free State. Both are parties of the centre-right with Fianna Fail representing Ireland’s agrarian party and as Gallagher and Marsh (2004) note, Fine Gael typically being described as Ireland’s Christian Democratic party. Both parties are nationalist but Byrne and O’Malley (2012) argue that their nationalist traditions have different roots with Fine Gael having an Irish Enlightenment or constitutionalist tradition while Fianna Fáil is separatist and culturally Gaelic. Fine Gael tends to be located by experts to the right of Fianna Fáil (Castles & Mair, 1984; Huber & Inglehart, 1995). Control over the government alternates between these two parties with one or the other typically forming a coalition with one or more of the smaller parties or else acting as a minority government (as is the case currently for Fine Gael). Cumulatively Fianna Fáil has spent many more years in government. The other political parties in the system – with one notable exception – are past and potential future coalition partners for Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. The Labour Party is Ireland’s Social Democratic party and is of course located to the left-of-centre in the Irish political space (Castles & Mair, 1984). That party has gone into government with both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael at different times. The Green Party is also positioned on the left of the political spectrum (Benoit & Laver, 2003) and has moved from its early days as a protest movement to a party that has acted as a junior coalition partner (Bolleyer, 2010). Sinn Féin represents the fifth main political party in Ireland and one of the country’s oldest. A strong nationalist party, it is an anomaly in that it is typically placed by experts to the left of the Labour Party on the political spectrum (Benoit & Laver, 2005) but O’Malley (2008) argues that it draws its support
35 from those who would tend to flock to radical right parties in other European countries, effectively blocking a far-right party from taking-off in Ireland. Despite its success in Northern Ireland this party has not been in power south of the border since the Republic of Ireland was established. Its historical ties to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) mean that the party is not deemed coalitionable by the two main parties; and indeed at various times the party has explicitly been ruled out as a viable coalition partner (Sheahan, 2013; Hosford, 2014; Carr, 2017).
In addition to these five political parties, smaller parties emerge periodically in the political space, mostly on the left (Democratic Left, Workers’ Party, Anti-Austerity Alliance, People Before Profit, the Social Democrats) but some on the right (Progressive Democrats, Renua). The smaller left parties have tended to split, merge, and re-brand with regularity (People Before Profit was established before the Anti-Austerity Alliance but the two eventually merged to form AAA-PBP before subsequently rebranding in Spring 2017 as Solidarity). Democratic Left and the Progressive Democrats both made it into coalition government at different times but the former subsequently merged with the Labour Party in 1999 and the latter – having initially formed from a Fianna Fáil split – eventually dissolved after a sharp drop in support at the 2007 general election. As has been noted above, the presence of multiple parties has been associated with more opportunities being created for women, most notably where those parties are smaller and/or of the left. While the two main parties have been comparatively slow to recruit women (McGing, 2013), and the Labour Party did not really begin to field notably more women candidates until relatively recently (in part due to its strategy during the 1980s of fielding only one candidate in the constituencies that it contested) the smaller parties like the Green Party and the Progressive Democrats did prove to have a positive effect on the electoral fortunes of women (Galligan, 1993). The positive impact of these parties on the left of the political spectrum has therefore been limited in the Irish case for two reasons.
Firstly, as has been noted above, politics in the Republic of Ireland has been dominated by two parties of the centre-right meaning that the left parties have been particularly weak. We can say then that even if all of the left parties (Labour, Democratic Left, Workers’ Party, Anti-Austerity Alliance etc.) had been particularly hospitable to their candidacies the share of women elected to political office would still have been relatively low due to the fact that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were still collecting the lion’s share of the vote and therefore the seats4. Secondly, as Galligan (1993) points out, the largest left party
in Ireland (the Labour party) did not demonstrate a strong commitment to recruiting women to run as candidates for the party until relatively recently. This means that even had the biggest party on the
4 These parties held over 80 percent of the vote in the elections that were held between the start of the 1960s and the end of the 1980s, though this figure has declined over time, dropping to 56 percent in 2016 (Farrell & Suiter, 2016).
36 left managed to increase the size of its vote at the expense of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael this would not necessarily have translated into greater female representation. Claveria’s (2014) work explaining the appointment of women to cabinet in advanced industrial democracies5 suggests that we should
distinguish between parties of the ‘new left’ and the ‘old left’ (a materialist/post-materialist differentiation) since the former tend to be concerned with achieving greater women’s representation in contrast with the latter for whom this is not a core concern. We might expect the existence of left parties in Ireland then to be rather less of a boon for women in politics than the comparative literature currently suggests. However, we can go so far as to say that having multiple parties, some of which are on the left of the political spectrum, should at least provide greater scope for women’s recruitment as candidates than a two-party system would.
Additionally, with respect to the internal structure of the parties, there is scope for party executives to intervene in the candidate selection process. Candidate selection by Irish parties usually takes place at constituency level by means of a selection conference or convention by delegates from the party branches. However, it is worth noting the influence that the party retains over the entire process; the national executive may decide to impose additional candidates or veto those selected at local level meaning that the selection process is relatively centralized in theory if not always in practice (Farrell, 1999; Lundell, 2004). Indeed the selection has been described in the following way: “as one of constituency-level selection, with national supervision and influence...many of the formidable powers of the national executive lie dormant” (Gallagher, 1988, p.125). Indeed, there has been a tendency towards the centralization in the candidate selection process (ibid.). Certainly this might be expected to benefit women if party executives decided to intervene in order to bring more diversity to their tickets. Though Lakeman, writing in 1994, noted that it was only relatively recently that such diversity became a consideration. Certainly, the necessity of national executive intervention was evident during the candidate selection process in the run up to the 2016 general election. The authority of Fianna Fáil’s national executive to intervene in the process was challenged at the local level when the executive was forced to do so in order to reach the 30 percent share of women candidates mandated by the gender quota that was coming into effect for the first time. At the selection convention in Longford members walked out when Connie Gerety-Quinn was added to the ticket (Irish Examiner, 2015) and a Fianna Fáil activist who had failed to be selected in the Dublin Central constituency took an ultimately unsuccessful challenge of the quota to the courts (Carolan, 2016).
At the lowest tier of Norris’ (1993) nested model of legislative recruitment are the supply of aspirants and the demands of voters. Ireland exhibits two other features that might also be expected to produce
37 greater gender equality in terms of political representation. Voters constitute an important component of the demand for female legislators. Where voters are unwilling to cast a vote for them, we can expect fewer women to make it into parliament regardless of how many of them choose to stand. Prior research employing ballot and survey data indicates that the Irish electorate is not systematically biased against female candidates; all else equal, when women run for elective office they can expect their chances of winning to be just as great as their male counterparts (McElroy & Marsh, 2010; 2011). Finally, on the supply-side Norris and others have pointed to the importance of having access to the type of resources that encourage people to run and make success more likely. Being a member of certain pipeline professions has been pointed to as providing these types of resources. While strict rules on campaign expenditure mean that access to financial resources is not as important a factor in explaining who runs for elected office in Ireland, we can nevertheless think about other resources that might play an important role in determining who gets elected, such as time and social networks.
In Ireland, while local-level elected positions represent important pipelines to the national parliament (Weeks & Quinlivan, 2009; Reidy, 2011; Buckely et al., 2015), the overrepresentation of certain professions like the law is much less marked than it is in the US context (Darcy, Welch & Clark, 1994; Fox, Lawless & Feeley, 2001; Palmer & Simon, 2001). Indeed, in contrast to the US, the largest occupational grouping in the lower house is composed of members or former members of the teaching profession who made up 20 percent of the Teachta Dála (TDs) (Nealon’s Guide to the 31st Dáil and 21st
Seanad, 2011), an occupation where women are in the majority. Indeed, 85 percent of primary, and 63 percent of secondary school teachers in Ireland are women (World Bank, 2011; CSO, 2011). Women appear to be unable to benefit from the resources that this occupation provides. We need to think then about the types of things that might deter these types of women who appear to be well-placed to run for office from doing so.
To summarise, then, Ireland has a number of features that should foster women’s participation and progression in political life. It is economically developed with a high female labour force participation rate; its party system accommodates multiple parties of varies sizes, some of which are on the left; the internal rules of its parties make it possible for the executive to intervene in order to improve the gender-balance of its tickets; and existing evidence tells us that the Irish electorate does not appear to be unwilling to vote for women. In addition, although its proportional electoral system is candidate-