Prepare for hypocritical speeches on Women's Day from Martin and Harris, Sinn Féin TD says

Eva Osborne

Ahead of International Women's Day on Saturday, March 8th, Sinn Féin TD Louise O'Reilly said there will be more "rambling" on gender issues from the Taoiseach and Tánaiste mere weeks after they elected a Cabinet with a "shameful gender balance".

Speaking to BreakingNews.ie, the TD for the Dublin Fingal West constituency said the hypocrisy "drives her up the absolute bloody wall".

Just three of the 15 full Cabinet positions are held by women, and only six of the 23 Ministers for State are women.

O'Reilly said this gender balance issue has dropped off the radar far too soon, and the Taoiseach and Tánaiste will get to make statements on International Women's Day without addressing their own shortcomings on gender issues.

"It's no coincidence that it just so happens to be a women's issue that gets forgotten about so soon, and yes, I do think it has been forgotten about very quickly.

"At some point around that, we will have statements...and all the lads will ramble on and they'll all say the same thing: ‘We must do better. We have to try harder. When we look around us, the Dáil isn’t gender balanced’.

"Simon Harris will come in and, actually you wouldn't even need to watch him because it will just be rinse and repeat from speeches he's given previously.

"He'll say things like: 'We all have a collective responsibility to make politics a safer place for women, to make politics a better place for women. We all have a responsibility'.

"But, actually, he has a responsibility. He's the deputy head of government, he's the head of his party.

"Micheál Martin has a responsibility. He's the head of government and the head of his party. So it's not like: 'Oh, it's everybody's problem'. It's actually not. It's their problem, and they need to fix it.

"It's gone off the agenda. People just comment: 'Ah, isn't it desperate there's not more women'."

According to O'Reilly the two parties leaders can't show any tangible progress in of what they're doing. "They they can show no strategy that tells me that they're taking this issue seriously.

"Nobody is making an effort even because it's not really a big issue for them. It's an issue that they have, but they will quietly and privately say things like: 'Women don't vote for women'.

"So they blame women voters, and say they don't vote for them. They blame the voters, and say women don't put themselves forward. So then they're blaming women."

O'Reilly said the implications of an unbalanced Cabinet are widespread and translate into very practical things.

"For example during Covid, when we were talking about what didn't constitute an essential shop or an essential service, shoe shops were closed down.

"It took a woman at the Cabinet table to say: 'That's great boys because none of our feet are going to grow because we're adults, but what about children? Children's feet will grow, they will need shoes'. And nobody thought of that.

"So when women are not represented at the Cabinet table, the issues are huge and growing. It's not just the fact that you get a very homogeneous view.

"So the majority of the people sitting at the table are white, middle class men. So they will reflect out, and that's not to say that their experience is not valid. Their experience is incredibly valid, but it is not the only experience in the world."

O'Reilly said these men then put forward their own view, and there is no one to counter, leading to legislation that is "out of touch" and only delivers for a certain portion of the population.

"We end up with poor decision making. We end up with a narrower focus and, in of our legislative agenda, we end up with a lot of tokenism," she said.

"You've got female ministers, and because there's only one from Fianna Fáil and two from Fine Gael at the Cabinet table, when there is a need for gender balance they get dragged away from their work to attend things for the optics of it.

"And because there are so few of them, they have to be constantly reused, so it means they have to spend more time taking the bad look off the Cabinet."