Will the 33rd Dail have a record number of women elected?

Published: Wednesday, January 15, 2020

With the 2020 General Election set for Saturday February 8, the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) today criticised the bigger political parties for not doing enough to ensure an increased number of women elected to the 33rd Dail.

Orla O’Connor, Director of NWCI said,

“When it comes to women running in the 2020 general election, there are some good news stories, with women running in every constituency for the first time ever. However, overall when it comes to gender in this election, the big parties Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are barely meeting the current 30% quota. This shows that our largest parties are not doing enough to achieve equal representation for women particularly given that the quota will rise to 40% in 2023.”

“During the 2016 General Election, 30% of women ran overall, and we saw 22% of women elected to the Dail. While some of the smaller parties are doing very well in running higher numbers of women, with the Greens running over 40% and the Social Democrats running over 60%, overall the number of women running is at 33%. This means it is very unlikely that we will reach the critical mass of 30% of women elected in the 33rd Dail.”

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