Women to make up just 15pc of election candidates
Published: Monday, January 31, 2011
WOMEN will account for just 15pc of the candidates running in the general election -- despite making up half of the population.
Despite promises from all parties to tackle the under-representation of women, there are just 56 females among the 381 candidates declared so far.
The Labour Party has the highest number of women running for the Dail (16), followed by Fine Gael (14) and Fianna Fail (9).
There are five female Sinn Fein candidates as well as five in the United Left Alliance. There are four female Independent candidates and three female Greens.
The number of women running is lower than the 2007 General Election, when only 82 out of 470 candidates were female. And the 2007 figure was the lowest number of women since 1989. Many of the country's 43 constituencies do not have a single woman running in this general election.
And in a sign of the difficulties facing female candidates, one of those surrounding Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny in their group election photo yesterday got an elbow in the back from a male candidate fighting for position. Mr Kenny said yesterday his party had more women running than in the 2007 General Election.
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